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PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  SOCIETY  OF  COLLEGE  TEACHERS 
OF  EDUCATION,  1908 


r'naro 


HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION 


AS  A 


PROFESSIONAL  SUBJECT 


Professor  WILLIAM  H.  BURNHAM,  of  Clark  University 

AND 
Professor  HENRY  SUZZALLO,  of  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University 


'  "*'  '  •• 


fteacbers  College,  Columbia  m.-u  ersits 

NEW  YORK,  FEBRUARY,  1908 


5909     1 


1  DO 


I 


PRBSS    OF 

BRANDOW  PRINTING  COMPANY 
ALBANY,  N.  Y. 


LA 

zs 

The  History  of  Education^ 

BY 

Professor  Wm.  H.  Burnham 
Clark  University,   Worcester,   Mass. 

The  President  and  Secretary  of  this  society  have  promised  me 
immunity.  Accordingly  I  intend  to  speak  frankly  of  present 
conditions. 

First  of  all  certain  noteworthy  facts  claim  attention.  Every- 
body believes  in  education,  yet  few  believe  in  studying  it.  Educa- 
tion represents  a  universal  interest  like  religion,  politics  and  art, 
yet  few  are  interested  in  scientific  pedagogy.  The  control  and 
direction  of  education  are  of  transcendent  importance,  and  yet  the 
subject  which  treats  of  this  control  and  the  methods  of  its  direc- 
tion has  seldom  until  recently  had  an  independent  and  dignified 
place  in  the  university  curriculum.  In  Germany,  the  classic  land 
of  education,  pedagogy  has  long  sat  as  a  drudge  at  the  academic 
hearth,  and  its  highest  recognition  in  the  great  universities  has 
usually  been  as  the  handmaid  of  philosophy.  In  this  country  the 
recognition  has  sometimes  been  greater,  but  in  general  the  educa- 
tional department  has  a  place  of  minor  importance,  and  the  work 
of  the  department  is.  as  investigation  shows,  often  misunderstood 
and  sometimes  despised.  The  financial  emolument,  which  in  this 
country  is  wont  to  be  the  correlative  of  the  dignity  and  esteem 
in  which  a  subject  is  held,  has  usually  been,  among  the  meagre 
salaries  of  all  academic  teachers,  still  more  meagre.  Both  literally 
and  figuratively,  in  the  words  of  the  Italian  proverb,  "  pedagogy- 
is  always  poor  and  naked." 

Probably  there  are  many  reasons  for  this  low  esteem  of  peda- 
gogy. The  subject  is  new.  Only  recently  have  scientific  meth-v 
ods  been  applied  to  the  study  of  education.  And  again  this  is  a 
field  where  all,  not  only  teachers  but  laymen,  have  opinions. 
Everybody  has  an  educational  creed.  One  believes  in  the  sys- 
tem by  which  one  was  himself  educated  or  else  an  opposite  sys- 
tem. Any  subject  of  which  everyone  knows  something  and  no- 
body knows  much  is  not  likely  to  be  regarded  as  the  special  field 
of  experts.  This  relatively  low  academic  standing  of  our  sub- 
ject, however,  would  not  perhaps  be  of  special  significance  were 
it  not  that  pedagogy  seems  to  be  conscious  of  her  shame.  This 
is  illustrated  in  many  ways. 

At  the  last  meeting  of  the  New  England  College  Teachers  of 


4  The  History  of  Education. 

Education  the  whole  session  was  taken  up  with  reports  of  the 
way  the  subject  is  regarded  and  the  discussion  of  means  of  ob- 
taining recognition  from  college  faculties,  school  superintend- 
ents, and  others.  The  word  pedagogy  itself  is  in  disrepute.  Its 
equivalents  in  European  languages  are  in  good  use,  the  German 
Padagogik,  the  French  pedagogic,  the  Italian  pedagogia,  etc. ; 
but  American  professors  who  are  particular  about  their  academic 
language  avoid  it.  A  few  years  ago  I  submitted  an  article  to  a 
prominent  educational  periodical,  and  when  the  proof  was  sent 
to  me  it  had  been  thoroughly  disinfected  -by  the  expurgation  of  all 
such  words  as  pedagogy  and  pedagogical.  The  name  of  this 
society  is  perhaps  noteworthy.  It  is  the  Society  of  College 
Teachers  of  Education.  Most  of  the  university  chairs  in  this 
department  are,  I  fancy,  chairs  of  education,  not  of  pedagogy. 

This  self-consciousness  in  regard  to  the  academic  standing  of 
the  subject  again  would  be  of  little  significance,  perhaps,  were  it 
not  that  there  seems  to  be  a  measure  of  justification  for  it.  I  am 
concerned  only  with  the  history  of  education.  As  regards  this 
part  of  the  field,  at  least,  I  must  frankly  admit  that  the  prevalent 
low  esteem  is  largely  justified  by  the  inferiority  of  the  methods 
and  content  of  the  subject. 

The  courses  on  the  history  of  education  given  in  our  colleges 
and  universities  are  of  two  kinds.  First,  the  more  practical 
ones,  as  a  rule  concerned  with  the  great  educational  reformers 
and  presenting  from  their  writings  those  elementary  educational 
principles  which  form  that  nucleus  of  common  sense  pedagogi- 
cal wisdom  recognized  by  teachers  everywhere.  Such  courses 
have  their  place.  They  are  probably  as  a  rule  excellent  and  nec- 
essary for  all  who  are  to  become  teachers.  Second,  are  the 
courses  of  a  broader  nature;  and  it  is  of  such  that  I  have  been 
requested  especially  to  speak. 

The  character  of  these  courses  depends  upon  the  teacher  who 
gives  them ;  but  if  we  may  judge  by  the  text  books  used  they  are 
often  narrow  and  inadequate.  As  I  have  elsewhere  (8)*  pointed 
out :  "  Most  of  the  works  on  the  history  of  education  are  filled  in 
large  part  with  accounts  of  second-rate  writers  and  second-rate 
books  that  happen  to  be  labeled  educational,  while  the  really 
great  educators  have  often  been  neglected,  and  jeducational 
movements  have  been  described  as  isolated  currents  in  the  pro- 

*The  numbers  refer  to  bibliography  at  the  end  of  this  paper. 


• 


The  History  of  Education.  5 

gress  of  civilization,  without  regard  to  their  vital  connection  with 
political,  social,  and  industrial  movements.^  The  method  has 
been  the  elementary  method  of  studying  and  describing  isolated 
facts  without  regard  to  historical  perspective  and  causal  rela- 
tions." The  ordinary  writer  upon  education  has  been  so  close  to 
the  details  concerning  curricula,  doctrines,  methods,  and  the 
like,  that  he  has  been  quite  unable  to  see  these  wider  relations. 
To  miss  these  is  to  miss  everything  of  permanent  value,  while 
to  record  these  is  to  make  the  history  of  education  one  of  the 
most  vitally  interesting  of  all  subjects,  (it  is  time  to  rise  above 
this  elementary  method  and  to  study  educational  movements  in 
relation  to  the  development  of  civilization^  as  a  part  of  Culturge- 
schichte. 

The  study  of  educational  history  seems  to  have  begun  about 
the  close  of  the  i8th  century.  The  first  attempt  was  probably 
Mangelsdorf's  in  1779,  which  was  followed  by  Ruhkopf's  Ge- 
schichte  in  1794,  by  Niemeyer's  historical  survey  in  1799,  and  that 
of  Schwarz  in  1813.  I  have  not  seen  these  early  his- 
tories, but  their  point  of  view  was  naturally  that  of  pedagogy  in 
the  narrow  sense.  When  the  larger  handbooks  of  the  history 
of  education  were  written  the  authors  naturally  took  much  the 
same  point  of  view;  and  in  the  great  mass  of  material  the  writers, 
on  account  of  the  limitation  of  human  ability,  could  hardly  do 
more  than  record  the  lives  and  works  of  the  distinctly  pedagogi- 
gical  writers  and  trace  educational  movements  in  the. narrower 
sense.  It  is  true  that  Yon  Raumer  (37)  did  better  than  this  and 
Schmid  (42)  is  a  great  improvement  in  many  ways  upon  earlier 
historians ;  the  best  of  them  all,  however,  in  the  writer's  opinion, 
is  the  smaller  book  by  Ziegler  (49),  who  attempts  merely  to  con- 
sider the  history  of  modern  pedagogy  from  the  point  of  view  of 
secondary  education.  The  excellence  of  this  book  it  may  be 
surmised  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  author  himself  seems 
to  have  recognized  that  at  the  present  time  it  is  impossible  to 
write  a  satisfactory  history  of  education;  but  he  has  done  a 
remarkably  fine  piece  of  work  for  the  purpose  intended.  Mon- 
roe's history  (28a)  is  a  scholarly  book  and  does  not  ignore  the 
wider  relations,  but  it  is  impossible  to  treat  the  history  of  educa- 
tion from  primitive  man  to  present  day  tendencies  and  problems 
in  a  textbook  of  800  pages ;  the  author,  however,  promises  a  con- 
tribution of  the  first  importance  by  his  series  of  source  books  so 


6  The  History  of  Education. 

/auspiciously  begun.  Practically  all  the  general  histories  attempt 
too  much ;  all  of  them  accomplish  too  little.  There  is  one  notable 
exception,  one  book  which  suggests  how  the  future  history  will 
be  written.  The  author  has  succeeded  because  he  confined  him- 
self to  one  country  and  to  one  century.  I  refer  to  Heubaum's 
Geschichte  ( 19) .  By  thus  limiting  his  field  the  editor  of  "  Kehr- 
bach's  Mittheilungen  "  has  traced  the  social  and  political  relations 
of  pedagogy  and  shown  the  significant  and  vital  aspects  of  Ger- 
man education  in  the  century  following  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

The  point  of  view  of  the  history  of  education  should  be  at 
least  as  broad  as  the  modern  aim  of  education.  We  emphasize 
not  merely  the  advantage  of  a  knowledge  of  books  and  classical 
culture,  but  we  demand  a  large  amount  of  motor  training,  and 
the  development  of  interests  in  science,  art,  modern  literature, 
social  and  civic  life,  and  the  development  of  the  spirit  of  co- 
operation as  well  as  that  of  rivalry  and  competition.  We  insist 
upon  the  importance  of  content  as  well  as  of  form,  and  of  form 
as  well  as  of  content,  and  in  our  modern  systems  of  education, 
industrial,  technical,  commercial,  and  the  various  forms  of  artis- 
tic education  have  a  large  place;  and  finally,  we  educate  girls  as 
well  as  boys. 

If  we  take  this  point  of  view  in  looking  at  the  history  of  edu- 
cation and  attempt  to  study  all  of  the  educational  factors  of  the 
past  and  the  educational  movements  in  their  wider  relations,  we 
see  at  once  how  inadequate  are  our  so-called  histories  and  how 
relatively  meagre  is  the  body  of  special  contributions.  For  a 
single  illustration  take  the  closing  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  historians  of  education  have  been  wont  to  dismiss  this  whole 
period  with  a  few  generalities,  pointing  out  that  the  training  was 
largely  for  the  life  to  come,  for  the  Jenseits,  that  the  virtues  of 
the  period  were  negative,  the  education  aristocratic  and  eccle- 
siastical, the  instruction  mere  verbal  legerdemain,  the  church 
sovereign,  Latin  the  only  tongue,  popular  education  null;  in  a 
word,  we  have  been  wont  to  sum  up  the  whole  story  by  saying, 
it  was  education  of  the  church,  for  the  church,  and  by  the  church. 
This,  of  course,  is  largely  true,  but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth. 

If  we  take  the  broader  modern  conception  of  education  we 
must  in  many  ways  distinctly  revise  this  conception  of  the 
character  of  education  during  this  period.  Even  as  regards  the 
study  of  the  seven  liberal  arts  and  of  the  classic  writers  the  med- 


The  History  of  Education.  7 

ieval  instruction  was  far  better  than  many  suppose,  as  shown  by 
the  studies  of  Sandys  (40),  Abelson  (i),  Anderson  (3),  and 
others. 

Medieval  education  was  different  from  our  own,  not  altogether 
inferior.  The  emphasis  in  education  was  upon  motor  training, 
industrial  education,  artistic  education ;  upon  the  so-called  educa- 
tion of  the  feelings,  and  the  attainment  of  good  form,  good  man- 
ners, the  knightly  accomplishments  of  the  gentleman,  upon  grace, 
courtesy,  and  good  breeding;  and,  while  scholasticism  prevailed 
in  the  Universities,  student  life  had  its  points  of  similarity  to 
our  own  (18  and  19). 

Even  the  schools  for  the  common  people  in  the  later  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Ages  were  far  more  numerous  than  is  usually  sup- 
posed. Illustrations  have  been  given  by  Brother  Azarias  (4), 
and  the  researches  of  Leach  (24)  have  shown  that  for  England 
at  least  the  Grammar  schools,  such  as  they  were,  were  more 
adequate  for  the  population  than  during  the  early  half  of  the  iQth 
century. 

The  education  in  the  schools  was  also  less  narrow  than  is 
sometimes  supposed.  It  consisted  largely  of  music  and  prepara- 
tion for  church  service,  but  this  was  no  unimportant  part  of  edu- 
cation. It  was  similar  in  a  way  at  least  to  the  old  Greek  train- 
ing. It  is  true  the  emphasis  upon  form  and  the  neglect  of  con- 
tent was  extreme.  Nevertheless  something  is  to  be  said  even  for 
this.  Today  we  often  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  neglect  form. 

Medieval  education  is  vital,  interesting,  and  in  many  ways 
commendable  if  one  can  read  the  records  of  it.  They  are  not 
preserved  for  us  in  school  histories,  note  books,  examination 
papers,  statistics  of  literary  and  university  diplomas,  but 
rather  in  the  great  works  of  medieval  art,  especially 
the  unsurpassed  architecture  of  that  period.  As  evidence 
of  the  education  of  the  builders  they  are  all  the  more 
convincing  because  the  product  of  their  hands  rather  than  the 
words  of  their  mouths.  The  cathedral  at  Cologne,  for  example, 
which  was  building  through  several  centuries,  represents  the  edu- 
cation of  many  cities,  parishes,  and  guilds,  which  vied  with  one 
another  in  its  decorations,  and  the  manual  training  of  thousands 
of  working  men.  It  is  in  a  word  the  record  of  a  great  school 
of  the  later  period  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a  people's  technical  col- 
lege, with  elementary  courses  in  manual  training,  masonry 


8  The  History  of  Education. 

stone  carving,  wood  work,  joining,  artistic  expression,  and  prac- 
tical moral  training  in  thoroughness,  integrity,  self-sacrifice  and 
mutual  co-operation,  and  advanced  courses  in  engineering,  mas- 
onry, art,  and,  finally,  in  music  and  religion. 

The  monasteries  were  great  workshops  and  the  varied  indus- 
tries performed  in  them  were  of  great  educational  significance. 
They  have  rightly  been  called  "  the  manual  training  schools  of 
the  Middle  Ages."  Many  of  the  priests  had  one  or  several  trades 
in  which  they  were  skilled.  Perhaps  most  of  them  were  skilled 
workmen. 

Education  opened  different  lines  for  talent  from  those  we  are 
familiar  with  to-day.  The  records  of  medieval  education,  as  has 
been  said,  were  in  the  buildings  of  the  time,  and  in  a  still  larger 
way  in  the  great  industrial  organizations,  such  as  the  guilds,  and 
the  great  political  and  commercial  organizations,  especially  the 
cities.  For  the  ordinary  workmen  and  the  men  of  talent  alike, 
the  means  of  expressing  thought  was  some  motor  objective  per- 
formance. Of  the  ordinary  workman,  who  built  the  cathedrals, 
it  can  be  said  in  a  sense  more  true  then  than  to-day,  "Not  a 
brick  was  made  but  some  man  had  to  think  of  the  making  of 
that  brick ;  "  and  of  the  man  of  genius,  the  words  of  Kipling  are 
true,  "  The  travail  of  thy  spirit  bred  cities  instead  of  speech." 

While  we  cannot  ignore  the  degradation  and  the  squalid  con- 
dition of  that  period  it  is  not  necessary  to  neglect  the  romance 
of  medieval  education.  In  a  day  when  the  means  of  communi- 
cation were  most  primitive,  and  railroads,  steamboats,  and  the 
like  were  beyond  the  visions  of  the  wildest  dreamers,  neverthe- 
less, travel  as  a  means  of  education  was  most  highly  esteemed. 
Not  only  did  the  great  scholars  go  to  Italy  and  bring  back  the 
knowledge  of  her  literature  and  art,  but  even  the  apprentices 
were  required  to  spend  one  year  out  of  their  seven  years'  of  train- 
ing in  traveling  about  and  learning  the  latest  and  best  methods. 
Soldiers  and  artisans  brought  the  knowledge  of  new  art  and  new 
skill  from  Italy  to  the  continent.  Sailors  and  merchants  carried 
the  Bible  and  the  new  learning  from  the  continent  to  the  British 
Isles.  The  wandering  student  and  the  tramp  teacher  were  not 
the  only  travelling  educators;  musicians,  poets,  fortune  tellers, 
conjurers,  clowns,  etc.,  etc.,  went  from  village  to  village  and  from 
city  to  city,  and  we  cannot  describe  their  function  merely  by 
branding  them  as  beggars,  criminals  and  vagrants. 


The  History  of  Education.  9 

Of  course  medieval  education  represented  the  education  of  the 
race  on  a  lower  stage  of  its  development.  It  was  different  from 
ours,  because  the  imperfect  development  at  that  time  made 
a  different  form  of  education  necessary.  It  was  not  perhaps  the 
best  possible  form  of  education  even  for  the  stage  of  development 
of  the  time;  but,  nevertheless,  it  did  its  work,  and  the  product  of 
it  appeared  in  the  art,  and  also  we  must  conclude  in  the  lives  of 
the  individual  men  that  shared  in  it, — thousands  of  skilled  arti- 
sans, artists,  priests,  teachers,  philosophers,  citizens,  and  states- 
men. That  we  have  few  works  of  literature  from  this  period  is 
not  strange  since  without  the  art  of  printing,  the  incentives  to 
expressions  of  thought  in  this  way  were  not  so  great  as  to-day; 
but  what  there  was  culminating  in  Dante  is  important.  And  the 
results  of  medieval  science  are  considerable^  As  Whewell  (47 
'  p.  349)  sums  them  up:  "  Parchment  and  paper,  printing  and  en- 
f  graving,  improved  glass  and  steel,  gunpowder,  clocks,  telescopes, 
the  mariner's  compass,  the  reformed  calendar,  the  decimal  nota- 
tion, algebra,  trigonometry,  chemistry,  counterpoint  (an  invention 
equivalent  to  a  new  creation  of  music) ;  these  are  all  possessions 
which  we  inherit  from  that  which  has  been  so  disparagingly 
termed  the  Stationary  Period." 

The  schools  of  a  period  should  be  studied  in  relation  to  the 
social  and  industrial  conditions  and  ideals ;  the  educational  move- 
ments in  relation  to  contemporaneous  literary,  artistic,  and  politi- 
cal movements ;  educational  doctrines  in  relation  to  prevailing  s> 
philosophical,  psychological,   religious,   and   ethical   ideas,   and  , 
educational  writers  in  relation  to  all  of  these. 

It  is  neither  scientific  nor  pedagogical  to  describe  a  man  and 
his  work  in  relation  to  education  in  the  narrower  sense,  and  to 
ignore  his  relation  to  the  other  culture  movements  of  his  time. 
For  illustration,  take  Luther.  As  founder  of  the  elemen- 
tary school  system  in  Germany,  as  champion  of  liberty  of  thought 
and  the  democratic  ideal  in  education,  as  representative  of  broad 
views  in  regard  to  the  schools  and  the  work  of  the  teacher, 
Luther's  contribution  to  education  has  not  been  overestimated, 
but  his  attitude  toward  the  general  culture  movement  of  his  time 
has  usually  been  omitted  by  the  historians  of  education. 

As  I  understand  the  relation  of  the  great  reformer  and  his 

work  to  this  wider  movement,  it  was  as  follows.  jSp  far  as  hu- 

.    .     *•*=—  . 

manism  was  concerned,  the  Reformation  distinctly  checked  it.J 


io  The  History  of  Education. 

As  Erasmus  declared,  wherever  Lutheranism  prevailed,  the 
schools  languished.  As  regards  the  indigenous  factors  of  the 
Renaissance,  we  must  stop  for  a  few  moments  to  note  the  intel- 
lectual and  political  conditions  of  Germany  at  this  time. 

The  revival  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  in  Germany  ap- 
peared in  many  different  ways, — in  the  independence  of  thought 
and  action,  represented  on  one  hand  by  the  invincible  Doctor, 
William  of  Occam,  who  in  the  i4th  century  maintained  that  the 
Pope  had  no  right  to  interfere  in  secular  matters,  and  on  the 
other  hand  by  many  heretical  sects,  most  of  them  more  or  less 
communistic  in  character,  such  as  the  Anabaptists,  the  Taborites, 
and  the  Bohemian  Brethren;  by  the  important  linguistic  move- 
ment represented  by  several  translations  of  the  Bible  before 
Luther;  by  the  indigenous  art;  and  in  the  world  of  industry  and 
commerce  by  the  guilds,  the  cities  and  the  great  Hanseatic  Lea- 
gue, and  especially  in  the  political,  industrial  and  social  life, 
where  a  general  condition  of  unrest  prevailed.  The  poor  peas- 
ant was  beginning  to  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  money,  which 
even  shut  the  gates  of  Paradise  to  the  poor,  and  to  demand  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  should  bring  divine  justice  upon  earth 
between  man  and  man.  The  modern  ideals  of  freedom  and 
equality  were  beginning  to  take  distinct  form.  The  German 
people  were  on  the  verge  of  a  period  of  intellectual  storm  and 
stress,  and  in  a  general  condition  of  instability,  characteristic  of 
a  period  of  awakening  and  of  anticipation.  Such  was  the  con- 
dition of  Germany  toward  the  close  of  the  1 5th  century. 

Just  at  this  psychological  moment,  as  we  may  call  it.  in  the 
,  workshop  of  one  of  the  German  artisans,  a  marvelous  thing  oc- 
'  curred,  namely,  the  development  of  the  so-called  "Black  Art  of 
Gutenberg,"  or  the  invention  of  printing.  It  is  almost  impossi- 
ble for  us  to-day  to  realize  the  social,  political  and  educational 
significance  of  this  invention.  It  gave  the  means  of  distributing 
knowledge  and  disseminating  the  new  ideals  among  all  classes 
of  the  German  people.  In  its  influence  upon  the  intellectual 
world  it  has  been  compared  with  the  introduction  of  the  use  of 
money  in  commerce.  Just  as  the  latter  made  the  capitalization 
and  distribution  of  wealth  possible,  and  furnished  the  means  for 
modern  co-operation  in  business,  so  the  discovery  of  the  art  of 
printing  made  possible  the  capitalization  and  distribution  of  the 
wealth  of  the  intellectual  world,  and  the  co-operation  necessary 


The  History  of  Education.  II 

for  great  movements.  Germany  was  flooded  with  pamphlets; 
artisans,  tramps,  and  wandering  scholars  carried  the  new  ideas 
everywhere. 

"The  decisive  moment."  says  Preuss   (35,  p.   114),  "when  all 
these  streams  must  join  in  one  powerful  and  irresistible  current, 
when  the  great  expectations  must  be  fulfilled  and  German  devel- 
opment begin  its  victorious  course  seemed  to  have  come  when    / 
the   Monk  of  Wittenberg  raised  his  challenge  against   Rome. " 
The  echoes  which  these  events  awoke  everywhere  in  Germany — 
concerned  not  only  first  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  reformation  but 
a  social  and  political  revolution." 

The  social  unrest  culminated  in  the  Peasants'  War,  which  rep- 
resents the  same  renaissance  among  the  common  people  that 
humanism  did  among  the  scholars.  The  injustice  from  which 
the  peasants  suffered  is  sufficiently  well  known.  The  reason- 
ableness of  their  demands  is  patent  to  everyone  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  read  the  twelve  articles  which  represented  these 
demands. 

/_The  attitude  of  Luther  to  this  movement  was  directly  contra- 
dictory to  his  general  democratic  position  in  education.  Like 
most  reformers,  he  was  a  disappointment.  Apparently,  he  failed 
to  see  the  significance  of  this  industrial  and  political  movement. 
He  took  sides  with  the  princes,  and  in  his  astounding  pamphlet 
addressed  to  the  peasants  descended  to  the  only  course  open  to  a 
man  who  contradicts  his  own  teachings  and  his  own  work,  the 
use  of  anathemas. 

To  Luther  the  working  people  were  merely  cattle,  and  he  ex- 
horted the  princes  to  kill  and  slay  the  peasants  like  mad  dogs, 
and  promised  heaven  to  those  who  fell  in  the  work.  While  he 
himself  had  been  the  apostle  of  revolution  and  had  taught  the 
duty  of  obeying  God  before  man,  he  now  became  the  mere  leader 
of  a  sect,  and  maintained  that  the  sword  was  placed  in  the  hands 
of  authority  to  punish  the  ungodly.  As  Mr.  A.  F.  Pollard  (57,  II.. 
p.  193)  sums  up  the  case : — ''It  is  almost  a  commonplace  with  Luth- 
eran writers  to  justify  Luther's  action  on  the  ground  that  the  Peas- 
ants' Revolt  was  revolutionary,  unlawful,  immoral,  while  the  re- 
ligious movement  was  reforming,  lawful,  and  moral;  but  the 
hard  and  fast  line  which  is  thus  drawn  vanishes  on  a  closer  in- 
vestigation. The  peasants  had  no  constitutional  means  where- 
with to  attain  their  ends,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 


12  The  History  of  Education. 

they  would  have  resorted  to  force  unless  force  had  been  prepared 
to  resist  them;  if,  as  Luther  maintained,  it  was  the  Christian's 
duty  to  tolerate  worldly  ills,  it  was  incumbent  on  Christian 
Princes  as  well  as  on  Christian  peasants;  and  if,  as  he  said,  the 
Peasants'  Revolt  was  a  punishment  divinely  ordained  for  the 
Princes,  what  right  had  they  to  resist?  Moreover,  the  Luther- 
ans themselves  were  only  content  with  constitutional  means  so 
long  as  they  proved  successful ;  when  they  failed  Lutherans  also 
resorted  to  arms  against  their  lawful  Emperor.  Nor  was  there 
anything  in  the  peasants'  demands  more  essentially  revolutionary 
than  the  repudiation  of  the  Pope's  authority  and  the  wholesale 
appropriation  of  ecclesiastical  property.  The  distinction  between 
the  two  movements  has  for  its  basis  the  fact  that  the  one  was 
successful,  the  other  was  not ;  while  the  Peasants'  Revolt  failed, 
the  Reformation  triumphed,  and  then  discarded  its  revolutionary 
guise  and  assumed  the  respectable  garb  of  law  and  order." 

As  pointed  out  by  Preuss  (35),  all  the  conditions  seemed  ready 
for  bringing  about  in  Germany  in  the  i6th  century  a  great  po- 
litical and  social  revolution,  such  as  England  experienced  in  the 
1 7th  century,  and  France  in  the  i8th  century.  But  the  peasants 
were  butchered ;  the  cities  in  their  conflict  with  the  princes  were 
beaten  along  the  whole  line;  Humanism  was  checked  by  the  Re- 
formation; and  thus  the  great  renaissance  movement  which 
promised  reform  of  abuses  and  new  and  higher  social  and  poli- 
tical virtues,  the  development  of  the  highest  ideals  in  education, 
and  in  general  a  regeneration  of  the  whole  life  of  the  people,  was 
checked  and  narrowed,  if  not  extinguished.  Social  and  political 
hopes  were  disappointed.  Humanism  became  narrow  and  schol- 
astic, a  mere  matter  of  school-room  pedagogy,  and  it  was  only 
in  the  relatively  narrow  field  of  German  Protestantism  that  the 
new  movement  made  remarkable  progress. 

The  optimist  may  maintain  that  it  was  best  that  the  energy 
of  the  great  revival  should  be  narrowed  and  focalized  in  the  way 
it  was.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with  that  question,  but  the  re- 
lation of  Luther  to  this  great  culture  movement  cannot  be  ignor- 
ed by  anyone  who  would  treat  the  history  of  education  thorough- 
ly and  honestly. 

The  study  of  education  as  an-  isolated  phenomenon  and  the  fail- 
ure to  note  its  wider  culture  aspects  have  naturally  led  to  the 


The  History  of  Education.  13 

neglect  of  many  important  factors  and  to  a  narrow  pedagogical 
view  even  of  the  writers  treated. 

The  chief  factors  in  education  beside  nature  and  the  school  are 
the  following: 

*(i)  The  Home, — the  earliest  and  still  in  some  countries  the 
most  important  factor  in  education,  a  factor,  as  suggested  by 
Roussiers'  investigations,  sometimes  even  in  modern  conditions 
more  important  than  the  school. 

(2)  The  Church, — which  has  always  been  a  factor  of  great  im-  x 
portance  not  merely  for  moral  and  religious  education  but  at 
certain  periods  the  great  conservator  of  knowledge  and  scholar- 
ship and  the  special  agent  for  instruction  in  music,  art,  and  man- 
ual training. 

(3)  Industry, — with  its  enormous    educative    influence,    not 
merely  in  the  industrial  training  of  individuals,  and  by  showing 
the  dignity  and  significance  of  labor,  but  less  directly  by  great 
inventions  and  discoveries,  by  the  organizations  of  labor  from 
the  medieval  Guilds  to  the  modern  Labor  Unions,  and  by  all  the 
special  agencies  from  the  apprentice  system  to  the  modern  Trade 
School. 

(4)  Society, — by  its  manifold  agencies,  with  its  emphasis  upon 
form  and  good  breeding,  upon  convention,  which  represents  of- 
ten the  wisdom  of  the  race,  with  its  varied  organizations,  all  of  \ 
them  appealing  to  the  instinct  of  co-operation  and  all  of  them 
doing  indirectly  in  some  degree  the  things  aimed  at  by  modern 
Sozial-padagogik . 

(5)  Politics, — in  the  older  and  better  sense  of  the  word,  es- 
pecially as  illustrated  by  the    educational    significance    of    the 
medieval  and  renaissance  city,  and  more  widely  by  the  inter- 
course and  co-operation  of  different  cities  and  different  coun- 
tries, as  illustrated  by  the  famous  Hanseatic  League  in  renais- 
sance times,  and  in  the  present  by  the  international  congresses 
of  art,  science,  and  philanthropy,  and  as  promised  for  the  future 
by  the  Hague  Court  and  similar  movements. 

(6)  Last,  but  by  no  means  least,  the  Playground,  and  all  that 
it  stands  for, — spontaneous  natural    development  of    children, 
healthful  activity,  motor  training  in  its  varied  forms,  individuality 
and  co-operation;  in  a  single  word,  healthful  development. 

The  special  agents  are  parents,  priests,  teachers,  merchants. 


*The  Labor  Question  in  Britain 


14  The  History  of  Education. 

artisans,  soldiers,  sailors;  social  groups  and  organizations,  guilds, 
clubs,  labor  unions;  books,  maps,  apparatus,  inventions,  news- 
papers and  periodicals ;  and  all  the  various  institutions  social  and 
scientific.  The  neglect  of  many  of  these  by  the  historians  of  edu- 
cation is  remarkable. 

The  learned  societies  are  scarcely  mentioned  in  the  ordinary 
histories  of  education;  and  until  Conradi  (10)  wrote  his  prelim- 
inary paper,  no  article  giving  a  comprehensive  account  of  them 
(so  far  as  the  writer  is  aware)  existed.  Yet  at  certain  periods, 
these  have  had  perhaps  as  important  a  part  in  education  as  the 
universities.  Some  of  the  modern  sciences  originated  or  were 
fostered  in  these  learned  societies,  and  'men  like  Leibniz  and 
Comenius  who  were  not  connected  with  the  universities,  or  es- 
teemed them  of  little  value,  found  in  these  organizations  oppor- 
tunity for  their  scientific  work  and  aid  in  their  researches.  The 
omission  of  any  adequate  account  of  these  societies  and  the 
apparent  ignorance  of  their  existence  on  the  part  of  some  his- 
torians are  simply  grotesque. 

The  most  important  factor  in  education  is  supposed  to  be  the 
teacher,  and  yet  in  no  country  except  Germany,  so  far  as  1  am 
aware,  and  in  that  country  only  for  the  teachers  in  the  People's 
Schools,  do  we  have  any  satisfactory  history  of  the  teaching 
profession.  The  importance  and  the  interest  of  such  a  history 
\J  is  shown  by  Fisher's  two  volumes  (12).  During  certain  periods 
the  most  important  teachers  were  private  tutors;  yet  we  learn 
little  of  them  in  most  histories.  Not  merely  in  the  homes  of  the 
great  and  in  the  courts  of  princes  was  the  instruction  given  by 
private  teachers,  but  also  the  artisans  received  much  of  their 
training  from  private  instructors.  This  was  notably  true  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  at  the  Renaissance.  Mas- 
ter workmen  were  the  instructors.  The  same  was  true  in  legal 
and  commercial  education.  A  notable  instance  was  that  of  Nic- 
las  von  Wyle  (26,  p.  13),  who  was  Secretary  at  Nuremberg  and 
afterwards  City  Secretary  at  Esslingen.  He  relates  that  many 
able  youths,  sons  of  honorable  families  and  Bachelors  of  Arts 
from  many  quarters,  boarded  with  him  in  order  to  be  instructed 
in  the  art  of  writing  and  composition. 

The  education  of  girls  has  been  almost  entirely  neglected  by 
the  historians.  That  this  has  its  importance  in  the  history  of 
education,  is  illustrated  by  such  works  as  those  of  Rousselot 


The  History  of  Education.  15 

(39)  and  Woodward  (48),  and  the  more  popular  work  of  Otto  J 
(32).  )The  higher  education  of  women  began  in  the  later  cen- 
turies of  the  Middle  Ages  and  at  the  Renaissance,  when  famous 
women  were  professors  in  the  great  universities;  and  the  dawn- 
ing emancipation  of  women  and  the  recognition  of  the  import- 
ance of  their  education  was  one  of  the  noteworthy  features  of 
the  great  awakening. 

Some  of  the  famous  women  scholars  from  Vittoria  Colonna  to 
Madame  Curie  might  well  be  mentioned  in  any  history  of  edu- 
cation. Again  one  usually  looks  in  vain  in  histories  of  educa- 
tion, except  Compayre's,  for  the  names  of  the  great  teachers  and 
educational  writers  who  have  been  women,  notable  among  whom 
were  Jacqueline  Pascal,  Madame  de  Maintenon,  and  Madame 
Necker.  Madame  Necker's  "  L'Education  progressive"  was  one 
of  the  first  and  is  still  one  of  the  valuable  books  on  genetic  peda- 
gogy. It  is  amusing  when  textbooks  in  the  history  of  education, 
destined  to  be  used  chiefly  by  girls,  from  fear  of  feminization  of 
the  readers,  or  other  motive,  fail  to  mention  the  great  teachers 
who  have  been  women,  and  give  no  account  of  the  education  of 
girls  in  modern  times,  nor  mention  any  writer  on  woman's  edu- 
cation more  recent  than  Rousseau.  In  some  of  the  histories  one 
finds  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  girls  have  ever  attended  public 
schools  during  the  last  two  hundred  years. 

The  whole  matter  of  physical  education  and  motor  training  has 
usually  been  slighted  in  the  histories  of  education.  Even  Mon- 
roe's admirable  Source  Book  omits  the  dialogue  of  Lucian  on 
gymnastics  (25)  and  the  somewhat  doubtful  but  important  Logos 
Gymnastikos  of  Philostratus  (34  and  8b);  and  in  modern  his- 
tories scant  justice  is  done  to  Guts  Muths,  Jahn,  and  Ling  (8b) 
and  the  great  movements  they  represent. 

Again  the  Guilds  as  a  factor  in  education  have  not  received 
justice.  Not  only  were  a  large  part  of  the  schools  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  early  Renaissance  founded  by  the  Guilds  (24),  but 
in  industrial  education  their  influence  was  pre-eminent.  A  regular 
course  of  training  was  prescribed  for  all  apprentices,  including 
a  year  of  travel,  in  order  that  the  artisan  might  benefit  by  the 
best  methods  employed  in  other  cities  and  other  lands.  And  we 
find  the  first  regulations  for  the  training  and  examination  of 
teachers  in  the  German  Teachers'  Guilds  of  the  i7th  century  (12). 

The  modern  newspaper  and  periodical  is  an  important  factor 


1 6  The  History  of  Education. 

in  education,  as  everybody  knows,  but  the  history  of  education 
has  no  place  for  it. 

Teachers  may  be  assumed  to  be  familiar  with  one  Daniel  Defoe, 
and  with  a  certain  book  called  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  yet  I  doubt 
if  any  of  them  learned  in  their  Normal  School  or  College  course  in 
education  that  this  same  Daniel  Defoe  edited  a  periodical  called  the 
Review,  and  that  this  was  the  forerunner  of  the  weekly  periodi- 
cals in  England,  of  which  the  Tatler  and  the  Spectator  were  the 
most  noted,  and  of  the  Patriot  in  Hamburg  and  the  famous  Ger- 
man Weeklies  that  had  such  a  great  influence  in  the  intellectual 
and  moral  education  of  the  i8th  century  (19,  p.  112). 

To  mention  the  important  names  omitted  or  slighted  by  the 
histories  of  education  would  require  a  volume.  If  one  wishes  il- 
lustration, let  him  consult  the  ordinary  history  in  regard  to  the 
great  schoolmasters  like  Vittorino  (483  and  8a);  the  educators 
of  courtiers  and  princes  like  Castiglione  (48)  and  Condillac;  typi- 
cal men  of  culture  and  representatives  of  home  education  like 
Alberti  (48)  ;  the  dreamers  and  fools  who  have  sketched  Utopias 
like  Campanella  (2)  ;  educational  statesmen  like  Leibniz  (19)  ;  and 
rare  pedagogical  geniuses  like  Herder  (49). 

Even  the  well-known  educational  writers,  such  as  the  Re- 
formers treated  by  Quick  in  his  excellent  little  book,  have  usu- 
ally been  inadequately  studied.  Only  part  of  their  writings  have 
been  considered  and  their  work  has  been  presented  without  re- 
gard to  the  environment  of  the  men,  the  soil  from  which  they 
sprang,  and  the  influence  of  their  work  in  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion. And  the  accounts  of  these  reformers  have  not  gained  in 
accuracy  because,  as  often  happens,  the  interesting  and  pictures- 
que features  in  their  careers  and  the  wider  relations  of  their  work 
have  been  suppressed. 

Comenius  (9  and  54), — the  product  of  that  remarkable  demo- 
cratic and  religious  community,  the  "  Bohemian  Brethren," 
the  author  of  textbooks  famous  the  world  over,  and  of  the  classic 
"Didactica  Magna,"  which  embodies  that  nucleus  of  common 
sense  principles  of  education  accepted  by  all  the  competent;  a 
pioneer  in  the  study  of  nature  and  of  childhood,  who  in  spite 
of  his  crude  analogies,  suggested  the  true  method  and  is  rightly 
called  the  Bacon  in  education ;  dreamer  and  mystic,  who  antici- 
pated the  future  not  only  in  methods  for  the  infant  school  and  all 
grades  to  the  University,  but  who  projected  an  International 


The  History  of  Education.  17 

University  for  scientific  study,  still  the  ideal  of  the  future;  hero 
of  defeat,  a  man,  the  tragedy  and  pathos  of  whose  life  would 
claim  our  interest  had  he  never  written  a  word;  the  "prince  of 
schoolmasters,"  member  of  learned  societies,  sneered  at  by  the 
pedants  and  welcomed  by  the  great  men  of  his  day,  to  whom 
Adelung  (2)  devotes  a  chapter  in  his  "  History  of  Human  Folly," 
and  of  whom  the  great  Leibniz  prophesied  that  the  time  would 
come  when  all  the  good  and  wise  would  recognize  his  contribu- 
tions (9,  p.  97).  The  historians  have  often  reduced  him  to  the 
narrow  limits  of  school  pedagogy,  have  not  understood  his  en- 
vironment, have  failed  to  grasp  his  method  and  his  ideals,  and 
apparently  never  read  that  famous  Bohemian  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
"The  Labyrinth  of  the  World"  (93). 

And  Rousseau, — "Poor  Jean  Jacques !  .  . .  .  with  all  misfortunes 
of  nature,  intensified  to  the  verge  of  madness  by  unfavorable 
fortune,  ....  in  whom  however  did  lie  prophetic  meaning, 
such  as  none  of  the  others  offer."  As  to  his  character,  Moebius 
(27)  has  pretty  well  demonstrated  that  he  was  pathological,  and 
that  his  Confessions  was  the  apologia  of  a  paranoiac.  Let  us 
leave  that  to  the  alienists.  As  to  his  pedagogy,  most  of  us  know 
it  from  a  torso  of  the  Emile,  and  its  errors  are  obvious.  A  cat 
can  look  at  a  king,  and  a  dog  can  bay  the  moon,  and  every  cat's 
mistress,  and  dog's  master  that  ever  taught  school,  can  criticise 
Rousseau,  but  it  is  better  to  learn  his  message  and  understand 
his  meaning.  To  do  this,  we  must  take  the  Emile  in  connection 
with  Rousseau's  other  writings ;  at  least  in  connection  with  the 
Social  Contract  and  the  New  Heloise;  for  these,  as  Morley  (30) 
points  out,  form  one  whole.  Davidson  ( 1 1 )  has  at  last  done  justice 
to  Rousseau's  influence,  and  the  significance  of  his  writings  in 
the  history  of  pedagogy  is  now  apparent.  He  stands  as  a  focal 
point  in  the  history  of  education,  summing  up  a  tendency  and 
embodying  a  doctrine  that  began  with  the  Greek  Sophists  and  is 
prophetic  of  the  whole  modern  movement  that  emphasizes  nat- 
ural development  and  the  rights  of  childhood.  More  directly 
and  concretely  he  was  a  John  the  Baptist  preaching  repentance 
in  a  desert  of  scholasticism  and  convention  and  preparing  the  way 
for  the  gospel  of  Pestalozzi. 

Again  Pestalozzi ! — that  "Harry  Oddstick  of  Fooltown,"  philan- 
thropist without  knowing  often  where  the  next  meal  would  come 
from,  teacher,  though  scarcely  able  to  write  correctly  and  unable 


1 8  The  History  of  Education. 

to  pass  the  examination  of  today  for  the  humblest  position  of  rural 
schoolmaster,  but  author  of  the  soundest  pedagogy,  student  of 
childhood  by  poetic  insight,  psychologist  in  the  methods  of  in- 
struction, and  most  significant  of  all,  protagonist  of  home  educa- 
tion, pedagogical  socialist  and  prophet  of  the  social  development 
of  modern  times. 

And  on  German  soil  another  follower  of  Rousseau, — Base- 
dow !  Was  he  not  four  different  kinds  of  a  crank,  whom  Herder 
declared  he  would  not  trust  to  educate  a  calf?  Sitting  up  all 
night  to  write  pedagogical  manuscript  that  he  should  have  burn- 
ed the  next  morning,  turning  the  school  into  play,  feeding  his 
pupils  on  pedagogical  cookies,  but  forcing  his  own  child,  that 
Wunderkind  of  the  "Philanthropinum"  (49,  p.  222),  in  a  way  that 
makes  pedagogy  stand  aghast,  and  would  lead  modern  hygiene 
to  flog  him, — at  the  age  of  eighteen  months  could  she  not  speak 
her  mother  tongue  distinctly,  at  three  years  of  age  did  she  not 
learn  to  read  in  one  month,  and  three  months  later  speak  French, 
and  in  six  weeks  more  read  it,  and  begin  Latin  at  the  age  of  four 
and  one-half,  and  learn  arithmetic,  drawing,  writing,  cooking, 
knitting  and  sewing,  and  withal  give  attention  to  nature  and 
theology?  So  sadly  had  her  father  misunderstood  Rousseau's 
ideal,  which  he  thought  to  make  real, — who  nevertheless  saw  and 
made  clear  to  the  German  nation  that  education  must  be  natural, 
and  have  to  do  with  things  and  not  words,  and  prepare  not  for 
the  school  hut  for  life. 

The  time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  Froebel,  the  evolutionist  in 
education,  who  in  spite  of  mysticism,  taught  the  true  pedagogy 
of  out  of  doors  and  the  spontaneous,  healthful  development  of 
childhood.  And  of  Richter,  the  pedagogical  poet,  whose  poor 
Levana  contains  real  gold  and  who  is  found  worthy  of  study  for 
a  whole  semester  in  a  German  university,  and  of  Herbart,  who 
discovered  to  the  pedagogical  world  "the  golden  gates  of  apper- 
ception." Of  Spencer  also,  whose  educational  doctrines  are  by 
no  means  confined  to  his  essay  on  education,  and  of  Huxley  and 
of  Ruskin,  whose  names  seldom  appear  in  the  pages  of  educa- 
tional history. 

Such  are  some  of  the  gaps  and  defects  in  our  ordinary  his- 
tories of  education,  and  I  fancy  in  some  of  our  courses  on  this 
subject.  The  history  of  education  must  fill  these  gaps  and  take 
account  of  the  wider  social  and  culture  aspects  of  education  if  it 


The  History  of  Education.  19 

is  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  interesting,  vital,  and  truthful.  The 
objection  may  naturally  be  raised  that  such  a  view  of  educational 
history  leads  to  the  futile  demand  of  Freeman,  that  the  historian 
ought  to  know  everything.  Not  at  all,  but  it  does  make  it  neces- 
sary that  the  historical  student  of  education  should  recognize  the 
limits  of  his  own  knowledge  and  ability  and  should  specialize 
enough  to  be  honest  in  his  work. 

Two  dangers  are  liable  to  be  connected  with  such  a  method  of 
studying  history.  On  the  one  hand,  Froude's  Disease  (23,  p. 
125),  on  the  other  hand  the  danger  of  hypercriticism,  pedantry, 
and  slavery  to  details.  Both  of  these  dangers  can,  I  believe,  be 
avoided,  but  it  is  well  to  consider  them. 

The  first,  as  pointed  out  by  Langlois,  is  a  disease  character- 
ized by  "  chronic  inaccuracy ;"  it  takes  its  name  from  the  Eng- 
lish historian  Froude,  who  was  the  classic  case.  "  Froude  was 
a  gifted  writer,"  says  Langlois,  "  but  destined  never  to  advance 
any  statement  that  was  not  disfigured  by  error;"  it  has  been 
said  of  him  that  he  was  constitutionally  inaccurate.  For  example,, 
he  had  visited  the  city  of  Adelaide  in  Australia :  '  We  saw,'  says 
he,  '  below  us,  in  a  basin  with  a  river  winding  through  it,  a  city 
of  150,000  inhabitants,  none  of  whom  has  ever  known  or  will  ever 
know  one  moment's  anxiety  as  to  the  recurring  regularity  of  his 
three  meals  a  day/  Thus  Froude,  now  for  the  facts:  Adelaide 
is  built  on  an  eminence ;  no  river  runs  through  it ;  when  Froude 
visited  it  the  population  did  not  exceed  75,000,  and  it  was  suffer- 
ing from  a  famine  at  the  time  "  (23,  p.  125). 

The  other  danger  is  well  described  by  Langlois :  "  The  habit 
of  critical  analysis  has  a  relaxing  and  paralyzing  action  on  cer- 
tain intelligences.  Men,  of  naturally  timid  dispositions,  discover 
that,  whatever  pains  they  take  with  their  critical  work,  their  edit- 
ing or  classifying  of  documents,  they  are  very  apt  to  make  slight 
mistakes,  and  these  fill  them  with  horror  and  dread.  To  discover 
blunders  in  their  signed  work  when  the  time  for  correction  is  past, 
causes  them  acute  suffering.  They  reach  at  length  a  state  of  morbid 
anxiety  and  scrupulosity  which  prevents  them  from  doing  any- 
thing at  all,  for  fear  of  possible  imperfections.  The  examen 
rigorosum  to  which  they  are  continually  subjecting  themselves 
brings  tfiem  to  a  standstill.  They  give  the  same  measure  to  the 
productions  of  others,  and  in  the  end  they  see  in  historical  works 
nothing  but  the  authorities  and  the  notes,  the  apparatus  criticus. 


2O  The  History  of  Education. 

and  in  the  apparatus  critic  us  they  see  nothing  but  the  faults  in  it 
which  require  correction. 

"  The  excess  of  criticism,  just  as  much  as  the  crudest 
ignorance,  leads  to  error.  It  consists  in  the  application 
of  critical  canons  to  cases  outside  their  jurisdiction.  It  is  related 
to  criticism  as  logic-chopping  is  to  logic.  There  are  persons  who 
scent  enigmas  everywhere,  even  where  there  are  none.  They  take 
perfectly  clear  texts  and  subtilize  on  them  till  they  make  them 
doubtful,  under  the  pretext  of  freeing  them  from  imaginary  cor- 
ruptions. They  discover  traces  of  forgery  in  authentic  docu- 
ments. A  strange  state  of  mind !  By  constantly  guarding 
against  the  instinct  of  credulity  they  come  to  suspect  everything. 
It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  proportion  as  the  criticism  of  texts 
and  sources  makes  positive  progress,  the  danger  of  hypercriticism 
increases.  When  all  the  sources  of  history  have  been  properly 
criticised  (for  certain  parts  of  ancient  history  this  is  no  distant 
prospect),  good  sense  will  call  a  halt.  But  scholars  will  refuse  to 
halt ;  they  will  refine,  as  they  do  already  on  the  best  established 
texts,  and  those  who  refine  will  inevitably  fall  into  hypercriticism. 
J  The  peculiarity  of  the  study  of  history  and  its  auxiliary  philologi- 
cal sciences,'  says  Renan,  '  is  that  as  soon  as  they  have  attained 
their  relative  perfection  they  begin  to  destroy  themselves.' 
Hypercriticism  is  the  cause  of  this"  (23,  pp.  130-132). 

These  dangers,  however,  beset  the  student  in  any  form  of  his- 
torical study,  and  yet  it  is  not  impossible  to  avoid  them. 

Thus  far,  I  have  myself  employed  largely  the  negative  and 
critical  method.  That  this  paper  may  not  be  entirely  unpeda- 
gogical,  I  wish  to  add  a  few  positive  suggestions. 
/•  Two  kinds  of  courses  in  the  history  of  education  should  be 
given.  Courses  of  a  distinctly  practical  nature  aiming  to  give 
that  nucleus  of  common  sense  pedagogy  which  every  teacher 
should  have  and  an  acquaintance  with  the  doctrines  of  the  great 
educational  reformers,  are  important,  especially  perhaps  in  Nor- 
mal Schools ;  but  it  is  not  my  function  to  speak  of  them.  Besides 
these,  culture  courses  should  be  given  for  advanced  students; 
and  they  should  be  as  interesting  and  solid  in  their  scientific 
character  and  as  significant  for  their  culture  value  as  any  of  the 
courses  in  general  history.  They  should  aim  to  develop  per- 
manent interests  in  the  history  of  education.  My  thesis  is  that 
this  aim  will  be  better  attained  by  a  limited  course  in  a  portion 


The  History  of  Education.  21 

of  the  field  where  the  material  is  rich  and  varied,  where  many 
important  contributions  have  already  been  made,  and  where  the 
teacher  is  familiar  with  the  subject-matter,  than  by  a  general 
course  that  attempts  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  education.  In  a 
course  on  a  limited  period  it  would  be  possible  to  consider  the 
wider  relations,  to  present  the  writings  of  educators  in  connection 
with  the  philosophical  and  social  ideas  of  the  time,  to  study  the 
schools  in  their  relation  to  life,  and  by  treating  the  large  aspects 
of  the  culture  movement  of  the  period  the  function  of  the  school 
would  be  seen  in  proper  perspective,  and  the  vital  and  interesting 
aspects  of  educational  movements  would  be  made  clear. 

The  importance  of  such  culture  courses  hardly  needs  to  be 
emphasized  here.  All  the  great  questions  of  today,  the  problems 
of  social  reform,  of  philanthropy  and  politics,  and  even  to  a  large 
extent  the  problems  of  hygiene  and  psychiatry,  are  educational 
questions.  The  great  danger  in  all  these  fields  is  that  the  re- 
former may  see  only  one  principle,  true  enough  in  itself,  without 
seeing  the  way  it  is  modified  by  some  related  principle,  and  that 
one  fail  to  see  the  relations  of  the  different  factors  in  social  evolu- 
tion. For  a  single,  concrete  example ;  it  is  a  great  error  if 
the  educator  exaggerates  the  importance  of  the  school  and  fails 
to  see  the  significance  of  the  other  factors  in  education — the 
home,  the  church,  a  society  and  the  rest, — an  error  that  results 
from  studying  school  education  as  an  isolated  phenomenon. 

It  is  desirable  that  culture  courses  of  the  kind  suggested  should 
at  once  be  given  in  our  colleges  and  universities  in  those  parts  of 
the  field  where  sufficient  material  already  exists.  For  a  concrete 
illustration,  a  competent  man  with  an  insight  into  the  wider  so- 
cial and  political  relations  of  education,  with  the  ability  to  see  the 
special  educational  influences  in  a  country  in  right  perspective, 
could  give  a  culture  course  in  ancient  Greek  education  of  first- 
rate  value.  The  mere  mention  of  some  of  the  books  that  would 
naturally  form  the  nucleus  of  such  a  course  is  sufficient  to  show 
that  there  is  material  already  at  hand  for  it  (8).  Among  the 
books  would  naturally  be:  Grasberger's  Erziehung  und  Un- 
terricht  im  klassischen  Alterthum  (16);  Girard's  L'education 
Athenienne  (15)  ;  Monroe's  Source  Book  in  the  history  of  educa- 
tion for  the  Greek  and  Roman  Period  (28) ;  Freeman's  Schools 
of  Hellas  (13),  and  Jowett's  Translation  of  the  Republic  of  Plato, 
and  Nettleship's  Theory  of  Education  in  the  Republic  of  Plato. 


22  The  History  of  Education. 

The  ancient  Greek  nation  offers  an  unusual  opportunity  for  the 
study  of  education  as  a  factor  in  the  development  of  a  cultured 
people,  because,  as  the  older  philologists  like  F.  A.  Wolf  pointed 
out,  the  culture  of  the  ancient  Greek  nation  was  in  a  large  degree 
complete,  and  it  is  possible,  in  its  literature,  institutions,  monu- 
ments, and  works  of  art,  to  study  the  various  factors  that  con- 
tributed to  the  production  of  the  Greek  character  as  a  cultivated 
nation.  In  a  word,  the  data  are  all  in. 

Another  opportunity  for  such  a  course  is  the  Renaissance  pe- 
riod, with  perhaps  Burckhardt's  Renaissance  in  Italy  (7),  the 
second  volume  of  Sandys  History  of  Classical  Scholarship  (now 
in  press)  (40).  Woodward's  Studies  in  Education  during  the  age 
of  the  Renaissance  (48),  as  a  nucleus,  and  with  references  to 
Kehrbach's  Mitteilungen  (53)  and  to  standard  works  on  art  and 
literature. 

Still  another  course  might  be  devoted  to  the  century  following 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  with  Heubaum's  Geschichte  (19)  as  a 
text-book,  and  with  special  study  of  the  writings  and  influence 
of  Comenius,  Locke,  and  Leibniz. 

Such  are  the  courses  desirable  in  the  college.  For  university 
students,  lecture  courses  of  more  advanced  character  may  be 
given,  these  especially  for  the  purpose  of  outlining  subjects  and 
giving  suggestions ;  while  the  more  important  work  will  be  that  of 
research  in  fruitful  parts  of  the  field. 

The  following  are  the  contributions  needed  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  history  of  education: 

1.  Collections  of  texts,  manuscripts,  journals,    letters,    laws, 
records,  text-books,  and  of  original  data  from  all  sources. 

2.  Based  upon  these  source  books  (like  Monroe's)   (28),  his- 
tories of  special  movements  and  schools  like  Brown's  (6),  mono- 
graphs, and  the  like.     These  should  be  the  work  of  competent 
students  following  modern  historical  methods,  and  considering 
education  as  a  part  of  the  history  of  culture.    Fortunately  we  have 
examples  of  such  work; — many  of  them  in    German;    and    in 
English  a  few,  notably  .Woodward's  contributions  (48  and  483). 

3.  Histories  of  education  confined  to  periods  sufficiently  limit- 
ed to  enable  the  writers  to  treat  the  wider  social  and  culture  as- 
pects of  education.     Heubaum's  Geschichte   (19)    suggests  the 
type. 

4.  A  series  of  simple  primers  of  the  history  of  education  in 


The  History  of  Education.  23 

each  country,  such  as  the  little  History  of  German  education  by 
Dr.  Seiler  (44);  these  to  present  in  simple  language,  the  main 
features  of  the  educational  history  of  a  country,  mention  the 
men  of  first  rate  importance,  and  outline  the  present  organization 
of  education. 

Nothing  would  add  more  to  the  dignity  of  the  subject  than 
such  contributions.  It  would  seem  desirable  that  this  society 
should  attempt  such  work.  The  opportunities  are  manifold.  All 
the  gaps  mentioned  in  this  paper  afford  such  opportunities;  and 
the  whole  field  of  American  education  lies  open  for  investigation. 
If,  each  year,  one  single  monograph  of  thoroughly  scientific 
character  were  published  by  this  society,  such  contributions 
would  soon  alter  the  whole  character  of  our  college  and  univer- 
sity courses  in  the  history  of  education.  Just  as  soon  as  we  have 
a  solid  body  of  such  scientific  studies,  and  just  as  soon  as  we 
have  competent  teachers  who  are  familiar  with  them,  no  College 
can  afford  to  omit  culture  courses  in  the  history  of  education 
from  its  curriculum.  The  field  is  fruitful  and  wide,  and  now 
when  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  wars  and  political  events  are 
not  the  whole  of  history,  the  opportunity  for  educational  re- 
search is  promising. 

I  have  given  in  this  paper  a  few  illustrations  of  the  defects  of 
our  histories  of  education,  and  presumably,  of  some  of 
our  courses  in  the  history  of  education,  and  I  have  mentioned 
representative  books  which  may  be  helpful  in  the  development 
of  culture  courses.  Students,  I  am  told,  sometimes  find  the  his- 
tory of  education  uninteresting.  This  suggests  that  something 
is  wrong.  I  would  submit  that  if  the  history  of  education  is  not 
interesting  it  is  not  truthful.  The  wider  relations,  the  culture  as- 
pects of  education,  are  always  vital  and  interesting.  The  method 
advocated  in  this  paper  is  the  way  to  make  the  history  of  educa- 
tion interesting.  It  is  the  only  method  in  harmony  with  the  lat- 
est scientific  methods  in  the  field  of  general  history,  and,  finally, 
it  is  the  only  way  thoroughly  and  honestly  to  study  the  sub- 
ject. 


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<>„    . 

od.  • 

oD.   •  ' 

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9a. 


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47.  Whewell,  William.: 

48.  Woodward,  Wm.  H. : 


483. 


49.  Ziegler,  Theobald.: 


50. 


The   educational   ideal.     Boston,   Heath,    1895. 

pp.  247. 
Deutsches  Frauenleben  im  Wandel  der  Jahr- 

hunderte.    Leipzig,  Teubner,  1903.    pp.  154. 
Geschichte  des  gelehrten  Unterrichts.     2nd  ed. 

Leipzig,  Veit  &  Co.,   1897.     2  vols. 
Sur    la    gymnastique,    public    par    M.    Mynas, 

Arthenes,  1858. 
Die  Entwicklung  des  deutschen   Stadtewesens. 

Leipzig,    Teubner,    1906.     Vol.    I,   pp.   379. 
Universities   of   Europe   in   the   Middle    Ages. 

Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  1895.    2  vols.  in  3. 
Geschichte  der  Padagogik.     Giitersloh,  Bertels- 
mann,  1890.     3  vols.     6th  ed. 
Lehrer  und  Unterrichtswesen  in   d.  deutschen 

Vergangenheit.      Leipzig,    DSederichs,    1901. 

pp.  136. 
Histoire     de     1'education     des     femmes     en 

France.     Paris,   Didier,   1883.     2   vols. 
History   of    classical    scholarship.     Cambridge, 

University  press,  1903.     pp.  671. 
Die  Padagogik  in  ihrer  Entwicklung  im  Zusam- 

menhange  mit  dem  Kultur  und  Geistesleben. 

Lpz.,  Brandstetter,  1897-1907.     2  vols. 
Geschichte    der    Erziehung.      Stuttgart,    Cotta, 

1884-1902.      5   vols. 
Jesuit    education ;    its    history    and    principles 

viewed   in   the   light  of  modern   educational 

problems.      St.    Louis,    Mo.,    Herder,    1903. 

pp.  687. 
Geschichte    des    Deutschen    Unterrichtswesens. 

Leipzig,  Goschen,  1906.    2  vols. 
Geschichte  des  Unterrichtswesens  in  Deutsch- 

land.     Stuttgart,  Cotta,  1885.    pp.  411. 

Der  Lehrer  in  der  Litteratur;   Beitrage  zur 

Geschichte     des     Lehrerstandes.       2nd     ed. 

Freiburg,  Waetzel,  1898.     pp.  468. 
History    of   the    inductive    sciences.      London, 

Parker,  1847.     3  vols. 
Studies    in    education    during   the    age    of    the 

Renaissance  1400-1600.     Camb.,  Univ.   Press. 

1006.     pp.  336. 

Vittorino  Da  Feltre  and  other  humanist  educa- 
tors.    Cambridge,  Univ.  press,  1897.  pp.  256. 
Geschichte    der    Padagogik.     Miinchen,  Beck, 

1895.    PP.  361. 
Archiv.    f.    Kultur-Geschichte,    hrsg.    von    Dr. 

George  Steinhausen,   Berlin. 


i 


Bibliography.  27 

51. :  Barnard's   American   Journal   of    Education. 

Founded  in  1855.     Hartford. 
53. :  Beitrage     z.     Kultur-und    Universalgeschichte, 

hrsg.  von  Karl  Lamprecht.    Leipzig. 
S3.  — :  Mitteilungen    der    Gesellschaft    fur    deutsche 

Erziehungs-und   Schulgeschichte.     von   Karl 

Kehrbach.    17.    Jahrgang,    Berlin,    Hoffman, 

1907. 
54. :  Monatshefte    der    Comeniusgesellschaft.    hrsg. 

von  Ludwig  Keller.     Berlin. 
55. :  Monumenta    Germaniae    Paedagogica;   ed.   by 

Karl   Kehrbach.     Berlin.     38  vols. 
56. :  Neue  Jahrbucher  fur  Das  Klassische  Altertum. 

Geschichte  und  Deutsche  Literatur  und  fur 

Padagogik.   Hrsg.  Von.  Prof.  Dr.  Johannes 

Ilberg     und     Prof.     Dr.     Bernhard     Gerth. 

Leipzig,  B.  G.  Teubner. 
57- :  The  Cambridge  Modern  History.     Edited  by 

A.  W.  Ward,  Litt'D.    G.  W.  Prothero,  LitfD. 

Cambridge,    University   press,    1902-7. 


The  Professional  Use  of  the  History 
of  Education 

BY 

Professor  Henry  Suzzallo 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 


GENERAL.     OUTLINE  OF  THE  DISCUSSION. 
I.     INTRODUCTION. 

1.  Skepticism  as  to  the  professional  worth  of  the  subject. 

a.  The  criticism  of  its  subject  matter  and  its  presentation. 

2.  Judgment  of  worth  in  potentiality  rather  than  in  past  service. 

a.  Transient  nature  of  prevalent  defects. 

3.  Treatment  offered  as  a  basis  for  discussion. 

a.  View  of  administrative  status  of  subject. 

b.  Tentative  principles  for  selection  and  organization  of  sub- 

ject matter. 

II.  THE  ADMINISTRATIVE  STATUS  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION. 

1.  Its  historic  standing  in  universities. 

2.  Its  present  important  place. 

a.  Number  of  institutions  offering  courses. 

b.  Number  of  students  taking  the  course. 

3.  The  six  types  of  treatment. 

a.  General,  introductory  courses. 

b.  More  intensive  courses,  treating  general  or  special  aspects. 

c.  Courses  in  the  history  of  education  in  America. 

d.  Courses  in  theoretic  writings. 

e.  Seminars  or  courses  studying  sources. 

f.  Historv  as  a  method  in  other  courses. 


30  The  History  of  Education. 

4.  The  general  introductory  course  alone  has  widespread  status. 

a.  Sometimes  combined  with  an  introduction  to  theory. 

b.  In  use  it  is  introductory  to  the  study  of  education. 

c.  The  usual  time  allotment. 

d.  Standing  required  of  student  for  admission. 

e.  Summary  of  the  administrative  status  of  the  general  in- 

troductory course. 

(i)  A  general  introductory  course  open  to  juniors, 
and  covering  three  periods  a  week  during  the 
academic  year. 

5.  Three  types  of  students  and  their  needs. 

a.  The  specialist  in  history. 

b.  The  liberal  arts  student. 

c.  The  special  student  of  education. 

d.  An  ideal  arrangement  would  dictate  three  courses. 

6.  Advanced  and  specialized  work  in  the  history  of  education 
should  be  sharply  differentiated  from  that  for  other  students. 

a.  The  needs  and  methods  are  somewhat  opposed. 

b.  Existing  conditions  in  university  and  professional  school 

permit  it. 

c.  This  opportunity  for  differentiation  not  utilized. 

7.  The  history  of  education  as  general  culture  and  as  a  first 
professional  view  may  be  combined  in  one  course. 

a.  The  indefinite  relation  between  liberal  school  and  pro- 

fessional   department   of   education    seems    a   practical 
obstacle  to  separation. 

b.  If  the  professional  course  is  introductory  rather  than  final, 

the  necessity  for  separation  seems  lessened. 

(1)  The  traditional  nature  of  education  as  a  social 

work  requires  a  preliminary  historic  treatment. 

(2)  The  established  procedure  corroborates  the  theo- 

retic demand. 

c.  The  relations  and  demands  of  an   introductory  profes- 

sional view  and  those  of  a  general  culture  student,  do 
not  justify  two  separate  courses. 

(1)  Command  of  academic  subject  matter  of  culture 

one  large  aspect  of  professional  skill. 

(2)  General    student   has    an    intimate   acquaintance 

with  the  school  and  its  practices. 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.          31 

(3)  The  first  professional  need  is  similar  to  that  of 

the  general  student. 

(4)  The  more  specialized  needs  of  the  professional 

student  may  be  met  later. 

8.  The  standard  for  such  an  introductory  professional  course 
should  be  about  three  periods  a  week  throughout  an  academic 
year  of  from  thirty  to  thirty-four  weeks. 

a.  Established  practical  conditions  suggest  this  norm. 

b.  Any  change  upon  purely  theoretic  grounds  would  involve 

difficulties  beyond  easy  control. 

III.    THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION  FOR 
PROFESSIONAL  USE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITIES. 

1.  The  three  opportunities  for  professional  presentation. 

a.  The  general  introductory  course. 

b.  Further  course  treatments. 

c.  Supplementary  uses  of  history  method  and  material. 

2.  The  mixed  organization  of  the  general  introductory  course. 

a.  The  conglomerate  as  the  tradition. 

(1)  Isolated  attitudes  as  moulding  forces. 

(2)  Lines  of  least  resistance. 

b.  Variation  in  present  practice  and  opinion. 

3.  The  need  of  an  adequate  and  unified  point  of  view. 

a.  Adequate  conception  of  educational  process  necessary. 

b.  Some  assumptions  as  to  the  nature  of  education. 

4.  The  limiting  purposes  of  a  professional  course. 

a.  School  education. 

b.  The  organization  of  knowledge  by  action. 

c.  The  appreciation  of  present  problems  and  needs. 

5.  The  aspects  and  relations  to  be  treated. 

a.  The  school's  two  modes  of  adjustment. 

(i)   External  and  internal. 

b.  Social  adjustments. 

(1)  The  school  and  society. 

(2)  The  school  and  other  institutions. 

c.  Psychological  adjustments. 

(i)   Special  methods  of  instruction  and  discipline. 

d.  The  complete  relating  of  theory  and  practice. 

e.  Suggestive  topics. 


32  The  History  of  Education. 

6.  Historic  scope  and  treatment  of  the  course. 

a.  Pertinency  to  the  present  as  a  standard  of  selection. 

b.  Pertinency  to  present  not  to  be  confused  with  recency. 

c.  Continuity  to  be  maintained  in  treatment. 

d.  Limiting  of  scope  to  main  line  of  historic  descent. 

e.  Epochal   treatment   supplemented   by   a   review   through 

aspects. 

7.  More  advanced  courses  are  specialized  and  supplementary. 

8.  The  use  of  history  as  an  incidental   method  in  educational 
study. 

9.  Subsequent  course  and  incidental  treatments  will  meet  special 
intensive  needs  of  specialized  classes  of  students. 

I.     INTRODUCTION. 

Of  late  there  has  been  a  growing  skepticism  among  practical 
educational  workers  with  regard  to  the  worth  of  the  history 
of  education.  Considerable  criticism  has  accompanied  a  belief 
that  it  has  not  been  a  sufficiently  useful  professional  tool.  In 
the  minds  of  these  critics  it  has  not  always  been  clear  whether 
the  difficulty  is  inherent  in  the  subject  matter,  or  in  the  manner 
in  which  such  knowledge  is  treated.  Certain,  it  is,  that  men  who 
tend  to  see  the  whole  present-day  educational  problem  in  the 
device  and  method  of  teaching  alone,  are  inclined  to  regard  the 
whole  subject  as  a  rather  heavy  investment  of  energy  for  a  very 
small  return.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  equally  certain,  that 
those  who  view  the  modern  educational  situation  in  its  broader 
aspects,  who  see  in  education  a  large  social  movement  interplay- 
ing  with  many  other  forces  in  our  civilization,  are  inclined  to 
regard  the  whole  historic  aspect  of  our  professional  work  with 
more  favor.  The  criticism  of  such  as  these  would  fall  not  upon 
the  subject  but  upon  its  treatment.  Whatever  be  the  cause  of 
the  discontent,  the  problem  of  the  worth  of  the  history  of  educa- 
tion is  before  us.  More  particularly  speaking,  the  problem  is  of 
the  professional  value  of  the  history  of  education,  for  it  is  largely 
upon  pro-fessional  grounds  and  from  professional  workers  that 
the  discontent  is  voiced.  The  worth  of  the  history  of  education 
as  "  history  "  or  as  "  culture  "  seems  less  in  question,  at  any  rate. 

The  use  which  the  subject  has  in  professional  terms  is  not  to  be 
judged  from  its  somewhat  restricted  past  service.  What  the 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  33 

history  of  education  may  become  is  a  fairer  standard  than  what 
it  has  been.  The  lack  of  trained  instructors,  the  fragmentary 
organization  of  the  field,  the  absence  of  a  unifying  point  of  view, 
along  with  other  less  important  causes,  have  conspired  to  keep 
the  history  of  education  from  rendering  its  highest  service  to  the 
profession.  As  we  can  overcome  these  prevalent  defects,  more 
or  less  transient  in  their  nature,  the  history  of  education  as  a 
body  of  educational  experience  will  render  increased  professional 
service.  Frank  discussion  of  its  possibilities  is  required  in  order 
to  bring  clearly  to  mind  the  prevalent  inadequacies  of  our  subject 
and  its  treatment,  and  to  find  the  ways  and  means  by  which  the 
subject  may  be  better  organized.  This  paper  is  offered  as  a 
basis  for  such  discussion. 

In  its  treatment  this  paper  involves:  (i)  a  view  of  the  ad- 
ministrative status  of  the  teaching  of  the  history  of  education 
in  the  American  university,  so  that  the  conditions  largely  con- 
trolling the  administrative  regulation  of  the  subject  may  be  kept 
in  mind ;  and  (2)  the  suggestion  of  principles  for  the  better 
selection  and  organization  of  the  subject-matter  of  the  history 
of  education  for  professional  use. 


II.  THE  ADMINISTRATIVE  STATUS  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION. 

Any  plan  for  the  reorganization  of  the  history  of  education  as 
a  professional  subject  must  not  be  so  completely  out  of  touch 
with  present  conditions  that  it  may  not  be  realized.  It  will  have 
a  due  regard  for  conditions  and  practices  as  they  are.  Indeed,  it 
will  contribute  to  progress  precisely  because  it  is  a  plan  for  the 
realization  of  the  new  through  the  reconstruction  of  the  old. 
Hence  a  knowledge  of  the  administrative  relations  of  the  history 
of  education  as  a  subject  to  departmental  and  general  university 
organization  is  an  important  basis  for  any  discussion  of  the  pro- 
fessional use  of  the  subject.  In  fact  these  administrative  relations 
represent  limiting  conditions,  for  they  are  the  factors  which  are 
least  flexible  in  the  hands  of  the  department  of  education  or  the 
instructor  of  this  particular  educational  subject.  What  then  has 
been  the  administrative  status  of  the  history  of  education? 

Traditionally,  the  history  of  education  has  occupied  a  favored 
place  in  the  scheme  of  educational  studies.  When  the  first  signifi- 


34  The  History  of  Education. 

cant  professorship  in  the  "  science  and  art  of  teaching "  was 
created  at  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1879,  the  history  of 
education  was  made  a  considerable  part  of  one  of  the  two  pro- 
fessional courses  offered.*  By  the  year  1902,  less  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century  later,  almost  two  hundred  institutions  offered  some 
opportunity  for  study  in  this  field. t 

In  view  of  the  rapid  extension  of  professional  work  in  educa- 
tion throughout  university  circles,  in  the  last  half  dozen  years, 
it  is  altogether  likely  that  the  number  of  institutions  offering  the 
history  of  education  is  now  far  beyond  two  hundred.  From  the 
beginning,  the  history  of  education  has  had  an  accepted  place  in 
university  study.  The  subject  matter  and  the  names  of  other 
courses  within  the  general  field  of  education  might  indicate  the 
greatest  conceivable  variation,  but  the  one  stock  course,  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  which  might  be  prophesied  with  some  degree  of 
certainty,  has  been  the  history  of  education.  In  all  the  uncertain 
organization  of  our  educational  ideas  and  practices,  the  historic 
aspect  has  seemed  the  most  definite  and  the  most  tangible. 
Between  the  criticisms  of  scholars  in  more  advanced  fields  of 
scientific  endeavor,  and  the  patient  efforts  of  educational  theorists 
to  organize  their  fields,  the  history  of  education  has  stood  as  a 
kind  of  protection,  a  guarantee  of  solidarity  in  subject  matter. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  history 
of  education  should  be,  in  a  sense,  the  most  conspicuous  course 
in  the  department  of  education.  As  a  fundamental  requisite  for 
the  special  student  of  education  and  as  an  elective  for  the  general 
undergraduate  body,  it  has  been  offered  more  widely  than  any 
other  course.  The  reports  on  the  distribution  of  students  among 
various  educational  courses  made  for  thirty-one  colleges  and 
universities|  for  the  academic  year  1906-1907,  by  the  members 


*  Hinsdale,  B.  A.  The  training  of  teachers,  p.  35,  in  Butler's  Education 
in  the  U.  S.,  vol.  I. 

t  Norton,  A.  O.  Scope  and  aims  of  the  history  of  education,  in  Educa- 
tional Review,  vol.  27,  p.  443. 

J  The  colleges  and  universities  making  up  the  list  of  thirty-one  institu- 
tions used  throughout  this  paper  include  the  following:  Alabama,  Brown, 
Bryn  Mawr,  California,  Cornell,  Columbia,  Drake,  Harvard,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Leland  Stanford,  Miami,  Michigan,  Minnesota, 
Missouri,  Nebraska,  Northwestern,  North  Dakota,  New  York  Univ., 
Ohio  State,  Oregon,  Pennsylvania,  Rochester,  Syracuse,  Tennessee,  Texas, 
West  Virginia,  Wisconsin.  This  more  or  less  arbitrary  list  has  been  used 
in  this  paper  so  as  to  keep  its  organization  in  harmony  with  the  paper 
presented  by  Professor  Bolton  last  year. 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  35 

of  the  Society  of  College  Teachers  of  Education*  seem  to  in- 
dicate fairly  well  the  status  of  the  history  of  education.  Certain 
irregularities  in  the  statistics  make  the  figures  imperfectly  repre- 
sentative ;  but  they  are  certainly  indicative  of  the  general  position 
which  the  history  of  education  occupies. 


TABLE,  representing  reports  from  31   colleges  and  universities, 
showing  number  of  institutions  offering  the  specific  courses 

named,  and  the  total  number  of  students  from  all  colleges  en- 
rolled in  each,  during  the  academic  year,  1905-1906. 

Number  of  Total 

colleges  giving  number  students. 

Names   of   courses   offered                                       course  enrolled 

Child  Study   1 1  480 

Genetic  Psychology   4  105 

Mental  Development   4  150 

Educational   Psychology 15  1049 

Principles  of  Education 16  1 134 

Philosophy  of  Education 14  525 

Educational  Theory   12  590 

History  of  Education 27  199& 

Educational  Classics 6  1 18 

General   Method    12  629 

Special  Methods   9  1007 

Observation    2  25 

Practice  Teaching  5  52 

School    Management    10  588 

School  Supervision 240 

Elementary  Education  9  449 

Secondary    Education    20  619 

School  Systems   8  130 

Contemporary  Education    6  185 

School  Law   3  87 

School  Administration   10  330 

School   Hygiene    4  101 

Journal  Club    3  47 

*  Frederick  E.  Bolton.     The  relation  of  the  department  of  education  to 

other   departments   in    colleges    and   universities.     Journal   of  Pedagogy, 
vol.  XIX,  Nos.  2  and  3  (December,  1906,  and  March,  1907). 


36  The  History  of  Education. 

Of  these  thirty-one  colleges  and  universities  four  did  not  re- 
port any  enrollment  in  courses  in  the  history  of  education. 

The  four  institutions  reporting  no  enrollment  were  Bryn 
Mawr,  Indiana,  Iowa  and  Oregon.  The  latest  available  catalo- 
gues of  the  four  above  named  institutions*  show  that  Bryn 
Mawr  now  announces  a  course  called  merely  "Education"  which 
"deals  with  the  great  educators  and  their  systems  considered  with 
reference  to  the  problems  of  today."  Indiana  and  Iowa  both 
announce  courses  in  the  "history  of  education."  Oregon  gives 
a  four-hour  introductory  course  extending  through  the  year,  two 
of  the  four  parts  of  which  are  devoted  to  historical  aspects  of 
education.  One  institution  giving  an  enrollment,  Pennsylvania, 
does  not  announce  a  course  in  the  history  of  education  in 
its  more  recent  catalogue.  It  may  be  said  then  that  practically 
every  one  of  the  thirty-one  institutions  has  recently  offered  a 
course  in  the  history  of  education  to  its  students. 

The  courses  in  which  the  history  of  education  is  given  by  these 
various  institutions  of  higher  learning  vary  in  type.  They  may 
be  roughly  grouped  under  six  heads.  These  are: 

(1)  General  courses,  introductory  to  the  subject,  usually  cov- 

ering European  history  from  ancient  to  modern  period. 

(2)  More  advanced  courses  covering  more  intensively  the  whole 

or  some  part  or  aspect  of  the  first  course. 

(3)  Courses  in  the  history  of  education  in  America,  supplement- 

ing the  European  history  course. 

(4)  Courses  in  educational  classics  covering  the  theoretic  writ- 

ings of  great  educational  reformers. 

(5)  Most  advanced  courses  using  published  source  material  or 

investigating  history  of  education  from  original  materials. 

(6)  Incidental  use  of  historical  treatment  in  courses    not    pri- 

marily  historical. 

While  practically  all  the  thirty  institutions  offer  a  course  of 
some  sort  in  the  history  of  education,  there  is  considerable  range 
in  the  number,  nature,  purpose,  and  time  allotment  of  these 
courses. 

Whether  one,  five  or  more  courses  be  offered,  there  is  usuallv 


*See  Bryn  Mawr  University  Program.  1907-1908;  University  of  Indiana 
Catalog,  1906;  University  of  Iowa  Catalogue,  1905-1906;  University  of 
Oregon  Announcement,  1904-1905. 


• 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.          37 

one  general  course  covering  the  development  of  education  during 
the  ancient  mediaeval  and  modern  periods.  As  this  course  comes 
very  early  in  the  work  of  the  student  of  education,  if  it  is  not 
actually  introductory,  there  is  sometimes  a  more  advanced  course 
which  is  a  more  detailed  or  technical  treatment  of  the  whole  or 
some  special  part  of  the  field  covered  by  the  general  course.  In 
the  case  of  Columbia  this  is  as  an  advanced  section  of  the  regular 
introductory  course.  At  Iowa,  North  Dakota  and  Missouri,  it 
seems  to  be  a  distinct  but  advanced  course  covering  the  same 
field.  At  Northwestern,  it  is  a  year  course  on  the  modern  per- 
iod ;  at  Michigan,  it  is  on  the  "Educational  theory  of  the  Greeks"  ; 
at  Syracuse,  it  is  on  the  relation  of  philosophic  and  educational 
development.  Columbia  presents  an  advanced  course  in  the  his- 
tory of  education  in  England. 

For  the  most  part,  the  general  and  advanced  courses  men- 
tioned  above  deal  necessarily  with  educational  development  in 
Europe,  but  the  emphasis  is  retained  even  during  the  last  three 
centuries,  when  America  has  an  educational  history  of  its  own. 
In  some  cases  the  connection  between  European  development 
and  American  conditions  is  indicated,  the  continuity  traced,  but 
such  seems  not  to  be  the  general  practice. 

Some  institutions  offer  courses  in  the  history  of  education  in 
America  as  supplementary  to  European  history.  Among  these 
are  California,  Columbia,  Harvard,  Illinois,  Stanford,  Missouri 
and  North  Dakota.  They  are  always  more  advanced  courses 
than  the  general  course  mentioned,  in  most  cases  open  only  to 
graduates  and  the  most  advanced  undergraduates. 

The  most  frequent  additional  course  is  not,  either  the  more  in- 
tensive treatment  found  in  the  so-called  "  advance  course,"  or  the 
supplementary  course  in  the  "history  of  education  in  America." 
Courses  in  the  study  of  "Educational  Classics,"  "Great  Educa- 
tors" or  "Great  Theorists"  appear  more  frequently  than  any 
other,  save  the  usual  beginning  course.  Among  the  institu- 
tions giving  such  a  course  are:  California,  Columbia,  Illinois, 
Iowa,  Kansas,  Michigan,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  Northwestern, 
New  York,  Ohio  State,  Syracuse,  Tennessee  and  Wisconsin. 

Then,  there  are  courses  of  the  most  advanced  type,  courses 
for  research  dealing  with  source  material.  California,  Miami 
and  Stanford  give  courses  in  the  "Sources  of  the  History  of 
Education."  Columbia,  Harvard,  Illinois,  Missouri  and  New 


38  The  History  of  Education. 

York  give  "  Seminars "  in  the  history  of  education.  These 
latter,  at  any  rate,  are  usually  strictly  graduate  courses. 

Finally,  in  addition  to  these  various  types  of  courses  given  in 
the  history  of  education,  there  are  the  historical  treatments  of 
the  subject  appearing  incidentally  in  other  courses  not  pri- 
marily historical.  An  historical  introduction  to  courses  in  the 
theory  and  practice  of  education  is  quite  frequently  employed. 
Other  incidental  historic  treatments  of  special  topics  here  and 
there  throughout  the  course  are  usual.  Here  the  historical 
treatment,  like  the  comparative,  is  one  means  of  giving  a  cle?r 
presentation  of  the  course  in  theory  or  practice.  Any  full  treat- 
ment of  the  status  of  the  history  of  education  will  involve  all  the 
ways  in  which  the  subject  is  utilized,  whether  as  a  complete 
course  or  as  an  incidental  means  employed  within  a  course. 

It  is  the  general  history  of  education  given  as  the  only  course 
of  its  kind,  or  as  an  introduction  to  subsequent  study  of  the 
historical  aspects  of  education,  which  is  represented  in  prac- 
tically all  of  the  institutions  listed.  It  is  this  ancient,  mediaeval 
and  modern  history  course,  which  has  been  given  to  educa- 
tional students  almost  universally,  that  is  of  prime  importance, 
for  it  is  the  one  course  that  all  students  of  education  get.  By 
tradition  its  place  seems  to  be  fixed  as  a  general  introduction, 
not  only  to  its  own  historic  aspect  of  education  study,  but  to  the 
theory  and  practice  of  education  in  general.  As  it  is  with  re- 
ference to  the  worth  of  such  a  course  that  most  of  our  discus- 
sion arises,  some  more  detailed  consideration  of  the  status  of 
this  particular  course  may  be  valuable. 

Of  thirty  such  introductory  courses  in  the  history  of  educa- 
tion, twenty-one  devote  the  entire  assigned  time  of  the  course 
strictly  to  the  historic  treatment  of  education.  Nine  combine 
some  work  in  the  theory,  or  principles,  of  education  with  the 
history.*  Of  these  nine,  four  begin  with  a  theoretic  treatment. 
The  other  five  begin  with  history  and  end  with  theory.  In  such 
combination  courses  from  one-third  to  one-half  the  time  allot- 
ment is  given  to  theory.  The  courses  giving  a  combined  historic 
and  theoretic  treatment  tend  to  have  a  larger  time  allotment. 


*  Courses  presenting  a  continuity  through  the  two  or  three  terms  of 
the  year,  and  given  at  the  same  days  and  hours,  with  the  same  credit 
basis,  with  traditionally  related  subject-matter,  have  been  counted  as 
practically  one  course. 


• 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  39 

No  course  restricted  to  history  exceeds  six  points  of  credit  for 
the  year.*  Some  fall  as  low  as  three  points.  On  the  other  hand 
no  combination  history-theory  course  falls  below  six  points, 
while  some  allot  as  high  as  eight  and  ten  points.  In  each  of  the 
nine  cases  where  the  history  and  principles,  or  theory,  of  edu- 
cation is  given,  the  course  seems  designed  to  be  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  study  of  the  field  of  education. 

Of  the  twenty-one  courses  which  give  the  history  of  educa- 
tion without  any  general  theory  as  part  of  the  course,  it  may  be 
said,  that  they  are  generally  courses  designed  to  introduce  the 
subject  of  education.  In  at  least  seven  of  these  cases,  the  his- 
tory of  education  is  probably  not  the  first  course  recommended 
or  required  of  the  student  of  education.  At  Drake  University, 
the  only  course  in  the  history  of  education  is  the  last  to  be  nam- 
ed in  the  list  of  courses.  At  Indiana,  Iowa,  Stanford,  Ohio, 
Texas  and  Wellesley,  the  history  course  has  preceding  it  some 
course  which  gives  the  preliminary  or  introductory  course  in 
educational  theory.  Sometimes  such  theoretic  course  is  called 
"principles  of  education,"  "  introduction,"  "elementary  peda- 
gogy," or  some  similar  title  is  given. 

The  first  course  in  the  history  of  education  is  most  frequently 
a  six-point  course,  meeting  three  times  a  week  throughout  the 
academic  year.  In  seventeen  cases,  six  points  of  credit  are  given 
for  the  course ;  in  three  cases,  four  points,  in  one  case,  three. 

The  prevalent  standing  required  for  admission  to  a  course  in 
the  history  of  education  is  junior  class  or  third  year  standing 
in  the  college.  Out  of  thirty  cases,  it  is  not  always  possible  to 
gather  the  position  of  the  course,  for  in  fourteen  cases  the 
course  is  placed  under  the  general  classification,  "for  undergrad- 
uates,"or  some  equally  broad  title.  But  twelve  colleges  indicate 
the  course  as  open  to  third  year  students;  two,  as  open  in  the 
second  year;  one  in  the  first  year;  and  one  in  the  fourth  year. 

Ignoring  the  variations  and  presenting  the  uppermost  tenden- 
cies, one  may  summarize  the  administrative  status  of  the  history 
of  education  by  saying  that  practically  all  departments  of  edu- 


*  As  a  norm  for  this  paper  a  point  of  credit  means  one  hour  of  lecture 
or  recitation  per  week  through  a  half  year.  This  norm  is  necessitated  by 
the  fact  that  some  colleges  count  "  by  courses  taken  "  and  others  on  the 
basis  of  "  hours  of  class  work."  Sometimes  this  reckoning  is  for  a  term 
or  an  academic  year,  and  an  academic  year  may  be  made  up  of  two.  three 
or  four  terms. 


4O  The  History  of  Education. 

cation  give  one  course  in  the  history  of  education  as  introduc- 
tory to  the  field  of  educational  study  in  general.  The  course 
is  open  to  junior  or  third  year  standing,  and  covers  three  periods 
a  week  throughout  the  academic  year.  In  subject  matter  the 
course  covers  the  ancient,  mediaeval  and  modern  periods  of  edu- 
cational history,  in  Europe.  The  European  Emphasis  is  generally 
found  even  in  the  late  modern  period. 

The  fundamental  organization  of  our  American  university 
life  imposes  another  condition  in  the  placing  and  treating  of  the 
history  of  education.  If  instruction  is  offered  in  the  history  of 
education,  three  types  of  students  with  three  separate  points  of 
views  present  themselves  for  the  subject. 

(1)  There  will  be  the  special  student  of  history  who  has  the 
interest  of  an  advanced  student  in  the  intensive  and  investigative 
aspect  of  history  study.  He  may  be  primarily  interested  in  po- 
litical   and    social    history    of    the    dominant    type,    seeking    a 
side  light  from  the  one  aspect  of  institutional  history  known  as 
educational,  or  he  may  be  an  advanced  student  in  the  educa- 
tional department  specializing  in  the  historic  aspects  with  the 
ultimate  idea  of  teaching  and  investigating  educational  history. 

Such  a  student  will  be  interested  in  almost  any  fact  which 
bears  a  relation  to  educational  development.  The  needs  of  his- 
tory as  a  continuity  will  guide  him  toward  the  gaps  in  human 
knowledge,  for  the  closing  of  those  gaps  with  any  truths  he 
may  be  able  to  discover,  will  be  important  to  him.  A  chance 
document,  however  remote  in  interest  it  may  be  from  the  per- 
son of  general  culture  or  however  distant  its  influence  upon  pre- 
sent day  educational  problems,  will  be  significant  to  him.  His 
is  the  attitude  of  research.  His  is  the  same  need  of  exact  truth 
and  all  truth  that  the  biological  investigator  has  in  his  scien- 
fic  laboratory. 

(2)  There  will  be  another  type  of  student  who  will  have  an- 
other need  of  the  subject.     The  American  college  student  fol- 
lowing a  liberal  course  of  study  will  be  no  specialist  in  history  or 
in  education.     He  has  no  specialist's  interests  in  either  of  these 
two  aspects  of  the  subject.    His  want  is  satisfied  when  as  a  mem- 
ber of  a  democratic  community,  controlling  and  realizing  itself 
largely  through  educational  agencies,  he  has  attained  a  knowl- 
edge of  and  an  appreciation  for  the  historic  forces  which  are  oper- 
ating in  our  present  educational  situation.  He  holds,  in  common 


• 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  41 

with  the  other  citizens  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives,  a  cer- 
tain relationship  to  the  school  and  the  other  social  in- 
stitutions. This  relationship  carries  with  it  the  obligation  to  un- 
derstand its  conditions,  its  aims  and  its  methods.  The  history  of 
education  in  so  far  as  it  sheds  light  upon  these  needs  and  problems 
is  an  instrument  for  the  appreciation  of  the  school  in  terms  of 
his  unspecialized  human  obligations  to  it.  The  history  of  educa- 
tion with  its  wide  stretches  of  detail  that  historic  investigation 
reveals,  or  with  the  emphasis  upon  the  technical  aspects  of  ad- 
ministrative and  teaching  method  which  are  important  to  the 
professional  worker  will  not  be  identical  with  the  necessities  of 
his  point  of  view.  For  him  the  history  of  education  is  not 
primarily  scholarship.  It  is  citizenship.  For  him  it  is  not  pro- 
fessional, but  liberal  and  cultural. 

(3)  In  the  university  there  will  be  a  third  type  of  student,  the 
prospective  teacher  or  leader  in  educational  work.  To  him  the 
historic  treatment  is  a  professional  tool.  He  approaches  the 
field  with  the  need  of  a  technician.  The  subject  is  one  aspect 
of  professional  training.  He  will  need  stretches  of  detailed  in- 
formation that  will  extend  beyond  any  desires  of  the  liberally 
educated  citizen.  But  these  stretches  of  detail  will  have  a  dif- 
ferent distribution,  emphasis  and  organization  from  that  of  the 
investigator.  He  will  need  to  know  the  historic  situation 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  particular  intellectual  mode  which  his 
professional  duties  lay  upon  him. 

Much  of  the  confusion  in  the  organization  of  the  field  has 
been  due  to  a  failure  to  appreciate  the  existing  types  of  student 
which  are  to  be  found  within  a  university,  and  the  full  validity 
of  the  point  of  view  which  each  represents.  The  result  has  been 
a  varied  practice  and  opinion,  and  a  failure  of  the  course 
as  measured  by  any  one  of  the  three  standards.  As 
a  "  history  course  "  it  has  not  compared  favorably  in  material  or 
methods  with  those  given  in  the  department  of  history.  As  gen- 
eral culture  it  has  grubbed  needlessly  after  teaching  technique 
or  truth  just  for  truth's  own  sake.  As  professional  prepara- 
tion it  has  shed  but  a  shadowy  gray  light  on  situations  which 
have  been  the  source  of  greatest  anxiety  to  the  practical  worker. 
The  clear  perception  of  the  worth  of  three  points  of 
view  and  their  legitimate  demands  of  the  subject  seems 


42  The  History  of  Education. 

the   first   requirement  in   any   new   and  better   organization  of 
the  field. 

To  the  university  which  is  sufficiently  fortunate  in  time,  pro- 
fessors, student  and  money  allotment  to  have  three  distinct  treat- 
ments of  the  field,  the  problem  of  the  proper  organization  of  the 
history  of  education  is  somewhat  simplified.  The  number  and  the 
kinds  of  courses  which  shall  be  given  in  a  university  are  however 
not  determined  upon  the  ideal  demands  of  logic  and  efficiency 
alone.  Administrative  conditions  in  American  university  life,  as 
we  find  them,  are  legitimate  limiting  factors.  A  professor  of  the 
history  of  education  might  be  thoroughly  cognizant  of  the  three 
possible  typical  treatments  of  the  field  and  yet  fail  to  see  how  they 
are  to  be  related  in  existing  institutions  as  they  are  now 
organized. 

It  will  be  less  obvious,  but  no  less  real  that  the  scientific  point 
of  view  of  the  modern  investigation  in  history,  seeking  truth  for 
its  own  sake  without  reference  to  practical  conduct,  is  quite  com- 
pletely differentiated  from  that  of  the  cultural  and  professional 
students  for  whom  the  facts  of  history  represent  special  selections 
of  materials,  selections  which  are  always  made  with  some  refer- 
ence to  their  ability  to  increase  the  appreciation  or  expression  of 
the  best  in  human  conduct.  Cultural  and  professional  courses 
present  facts  that  primarily  illuminate  the  general  problems  of 
the  citizen  and  the  special  problems  of  the  teacher,  respectively. 
The  same  type  of  perspective  is  not  present  with  the  modern  in- 
vestigator in  history. 

It  will  perhaps  be  readily  admitted  that  any  introductory  course 
in  the  history  of  education,  which  is  the  sole  view  of  the  general 
student,  and  the  first  view  of  the  prospective  teacher,  stands  at 
the  opposite  pole  of  maturity  from  such  work  as  an  investigator 
would  choose  to  do  with  the  subject.  The  opposing  points  of 
view  should  be  separated.  Their  treatment  should  be  considerably 
different  in  time,  maturity  and  organizing  point  of  view.  The 
administrative  arrangement  in  our  higher  institutions  here  favors 
us.  The  fairly  sharp  demarkation  between  undergraduate  and 
graduate  schools  is  already  sufficiently  established  to  permit  of 
the  assignment  of  the  liberal  and  the  introductory  professional  , 
treatment  to  the  undergraduate  division,  and  of  the  more  intensive 
historic  study  of  education  to  the  graduate  period.  Even  where 
professional  schools  of  education  exist  more  or  less  as  entities, 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  43 

as  at  the  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University,  the  same  line 
of  differentiation  is  found  as  in  the  university  proper.  The  ad- 
vanced and  specialized  study  of  the  history  of  education  by  the 
more  intensive  and  scholarly  methods  of  the  modern  historian, 
should,  then,  be  sharply  differentiated  from  that  of  other  students. 
Such  a  disposition  of  the  fields  is  both  desirable  and,  under  exist- 
ing university  conditions,  feasible. 

In  spite  of  this  opportunity  for  the  separation  of  the  intro- 
ductory and  the  advanced  study  of  the  subject,  the  convenience 
of  condition  has  not  been  wholly  seized.  Under  the  undiscrimi- 
nating  scorn  and  comment  of  their  scientific  colleagues,  some 
men  in  the  educational  departments  have  attempted  to  meet  the 
criticisms  of  their  fellows  by  making  the  course  a  mere  piece  of 
history  study.  A  command  of  facts  in  exquisite  detail  has  been 
demanded  without  a  due  regard  for  the  relativity  of  worth  which 
facts  have  for  cultural  and  professional  purposes.  Scholarship 
is  very  much  needed  in  the  history  of  education,  for  too  many 
of  the  men  who  teach  it,  deeply  interested  in  other  aspects  of 
education,  are,  in  practice  at  any  rate,  somewhat  indifferent  to 
the  scholarship  required  to  teach  the  subject  properly.  But 
scientific  scholarship  in  history  with  its  own  peculiar  points  of 
view  should  not  intrude  itself  beyond  its  proper  function.  It 
has  the  business  of  establishing  facts  as  such,  but  the  selection 
and  treatment  of  these  facts  for  cultural  and  practical  purposes 
has  its  own  standards,  and  they  should  be  observed.  History  in 
the  department  of  history  may  be  history,  but  history  in  the 
department  of  education  is  education.  The  administrative  assign- 
ment of  work  is  no  chance  matter.  The  difference  in  departmental 
points  of  view  has  been  a  factor  in  the  distribution  of  historic 
courses  and  it  needs  to  be  observed  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject 
matter. 

When  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  respective  demands 
of  the  cultural  and  professional  points  of  view,  we  find  no  such 
accommodating  administrative  demarkation  as  we  did  when  con- 
sidering the  scientific  study  of  educational  history.  On  the  con- 
trary we  are  confronted  at  once  with  an  indefinite  boundary  line 
between  the  school  of  liberal  arts  and  the  professional  depart- 
ment of  education.  Sometimes  to  be  sure  the  department  of 
education  is  clearly  differentiated  with  a  separate  organization 
of  its  own  which  is  the  case  with  the  Teachers  College  at  Colum- 


44  The  History  of  Education. 

bia  University  and  the  School  of  Education  at  the  University 
of  Chicago.  More  usually  it  hovers  on  the  edges  of  the  school 
of  liberal  arts,  half  professional  and  half  academic,  as  at  Leland 
Stanford  Junior  University.  Sometimes  it  practically  dominates 
the  liberal  school  as  in  the  case  of  the  University  of  Missouri.  It 
is  probable  that  this  administrative  condition,  with  the  under- 
lying interdependence  of  needs  which  largely  accounts  for  it,  is 
to  a  considerable  degree  a  sanction  for  the  prevalent  practice  of 
offering  but  one  course,  at  once  an  elective  for  the  man  seeking 
a  liberal  education  and  a  prerequisite  for  the  student  of  education. 

Is  this  practice  inconsistent  with  the  needs  of  the  cultural  and 
the  professional  student?  If  the  professional  course  in  the 
history  of  education  comes  late  in  the  career  of  the  prospective 
teacher,  his  highly  specialized  needs  would  certainly  make  the 
course  considerably  different  from  such  a  first  general  view  as 
would  be  given  the  student  of  liberal  arts.  Under  such  an 
arrangement  there  would  need  to  be  two  separate  courses,  a 
practice  different  from  that  which  we  now  know. 

But  there  are  several  important  reasons  which  make  a  generally 
required  professional  course  in  the  history  of  education  a  begin- 
ning rather  than  an  advanced  or  final  course,  a  consideration  of 
which  may  modify  the  apparent  necessity  for  two  courses.  In 
the  first  place,  one  of  the  first  necessities  in  the  understanding 
of  any  social  institution  and  its  work  is  a  clear  appreciation  of 
those  traditional  factors  which  are  operating  in  the  present 
situation.  Natural  science  may  look  at  directly  its  facts,  made 
independently  of  human  agency,  and  be  comparatively  little  in- 
fluenced by  men's  previous  traditions.  But  social  science  deals 
with  facts  made  by  its  own  past  practices  and  beliefs  and  now 
viewed  through  the  coloring  of  those  same  beliefs.  A  clear 
perception  of  the  social  work  of  an  institution  in  terms  of  practi- 
cal adjustments  to  be  made,  requires  first  of  all  a  disentangling 
of  the  historic  influences  which  are  persistently  at  work.  In 
education  much  of  what  we  do  is  the  product  of  tradition,  and 
the  very  theory  through  which  much  of  our  reform  is  made 
possible  is  filled  with  the  thoughts  of  historic  theorists.  So  con- 
servative and  traditional  an  institution  as  the  school  needs  historic 
illumination  to  be  understood.  Before  any  progressive  and  con- 
structive educational  policy  may  be  set  down  as  a  body  of  con- 
trolling theory,  we  must  understand  the  traditional  elements 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  45 

which  are  to  be  modified  in  coming  to  a  better  adjustment  to 
social  conditions  as  we  find  them  to  be.  The  historic  view 
should  be  an  early  if  not  a  first  view  of  the  educational  situation. 

In  the  second  place,  the  actual  procedure  fixes  this  professional 
course  in  the  history  of  education  as  the  first  introductory  course 
to  the  general  study  of  education.  Thus  the  theoretic  and  the 
practical  considerations  coincide  in  making  the  history  of  educa- 
tion a  beginning  rather  than  an  ending  course  in  educational 
training. 

What  differences  do  there  need  to  be  in  the  first  view  of 
education  given  to  the  prospective  teacher  and  that  general  view 
which  is  presented  to  the  cultural  student?  Are  they  sufficiently 
important  to  warrant  two  separate  courses?  There  are  a  num- 
ber of  conditions  which  would  suggest  that  their  needs  are  not 
sufficiently  diverse  to  warrant  separate  treatments ;  that,  indeed, 
the  first  professional  treatment  of  the  history  of  education  would 
largely  cover  the  demands  of  the  student  in  the  school  of  liberal 
arts. 

The  department  of  education  has  an  intimacy  of  relation  and 
a  community  of  need  with  the  school  of  liberal  arts  that  no  other 
professional  department  has. 

1 i )  One  of  the  largest  aspects  of  professional  skill  in  teaching 
comes  from  a  command  of  the  academic  subject  matter  which 
is  presented  in  the  liberal  undergraduate  school.     In  law,  medi- 
cine and  the  other  professional   schools  the  subject  matter  or 
knowledge  required  is  more  or  less  special  to  the  department. 
It  is  distinctly  professional  rather  than  cultural.     Education  or 
teaching  makes  a  technical  or  professional  use  of  the  culture 
subjects.     The  professional   student  of  education   must  always 
carry  much  of  the  point  of  view,  and  much  of  the  command  of 
subject  matter  which  characterizes  the  liberal  student. 

(2)  The  relation  which  the  average  college  student  bears  to 
the  professional  work  of  the  school  is  far  more  intimate  than  that 
which  he  has  to  any  other  professional  institution.     He  has  been 
living  in  an  intimate  relationship  with  the  school  through  the 
most  of  his  life,  to  a  degree  that  is  not  present  in  his  contact 
with    law,   politics,   medicine   and   similar   institutions.      He  has 
the  view  of  an  "  insider,"  with  a  memory  well  stocked  with  the 
detail  of  educational  practice.     A  more  intimate,  and  even  techni- 
cal tracing  of  historic  elements  will  lie  within  his  comprehension 


46  The  History  of  Education. 

and  his  needs.  His  very  close  acquaintance  with  the  school  wilt 
tend  to  make  the  historic  treatment  that  would  be  given  him  not 
far  different  from  a  first  view  that  would  be  proper  to  the  pros- 
pective teacher  who  commences  to  view  his  chosen  field  through 
a  historic  perspective. 

(3)  Wholly  disregarding  the  considerations  already  mentioned, 
one  might  go  further  and  say  that  even  in  the  case  of  the  pro- 
fessional student,  the  first  view  which  he  would  need  is  that 
general  presentation  of  the  historic  situation  which  would  be 
fittest  for  the  ordinary  student.  Our  educational  work  today  is 
too  much  restricted  to  its  own  traditional  devices.  The  taught 
becomes  teacher  and  repeats  the  traditional  method.  Few  teachers 
are  conscious  of  the  great  social  and  institutional  factors  which 
lie  just  back  of  their  traditional  ways  of  procedure.  The  details 
of  their  practice  need  to  be  seen  in  their  large  relationship,  as 
much  as  the  details  of  the  cultural  student's  school  experience 
require  wide  interpretation. 

For  the  general  student,  the  subject  should  reveal  those  facts 
which  will  guide  him  toward  that  appreciation  and  responsiveness 
to  the  problems  of  education  which  he  ought  as  a  citizen  and 
member  of  the  community  to  bear  as  an  obligation  in  common 
with  his  neighbors.  The  teacher  is  both  citizen  and  teacher.  He 
requires  this  preliminary  appreciation  of  his  field  prior  to  his  more 
technical  study  of  it  in  terms  of  constructive  and  creative  tech- 
nique. There  are  certain  final  and  widereaching  obligations 
which  the  school  bears,  that  need  to  be  seen  at  the  outset,  before 
the  success  or  failure  of  the  many  detailed  and  technical  means 
of  the  educational  worker  can  be  determined.  Without  this 
steadying  and  rectifying  general  view  the  work  of  education  must 
constantly  be  hampered  by  transient  schemes  of  reform  that  are 
short-lived  because  improperly  developed  out  of  setting,  and  by- 
traditions  the  lifelessness  of  which  is  unperceived  because  the 
passing  of  the  conditions  which  gave  them  worth  is  unobserved. 

There  is  a  very  real  danger  that  in  the  attempt  to  professionalize 
the  history  of  education  we  may  narroivly  professionalize  it.  The 
view  of  education  in  its  wide  connections  with  life  which  should 
be  given  to  the  prospective  citizen  taking  the  subject,  may  be 
missed.  The  tendency  to  make  history  yield  device  and  pattern 
in  teaching  technique  may  defeat  the  largest  service  which  a 
study  of  educational  development  may  yield.  Our  past  devotion 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  47 

to  a  few  theorists  and  the  internal  methods  of  the  school  as  op- 
posed to  a  study  of  the  school  organization  in  relation  to  social 
condition  and  need,  is  example  of  the  fact.  It  is  precisely  because 
the  larger  view  has  not  been  given  to  teachers  that  as  a  class 
they  are  unable  to  respond  to  the  newer  demands  which  a  living 
and  growing  society  imposes  upon  them.  The  very  first  need, 
in  the  face  of  the  present  condition  of  our  profession,  may  be 
more  thoroughly  to  professionalize  them  by  giving  them  the  wider 
view  which  has  been  demanded  for  the  cultural  student.  This 
need  is  more  than  special  to  our  professional  condition ;  it  is 
special  to  the  condition  of  democratic  society  in  which  the  school 
and  the  teacher  are  going  to  operate.  The  administrative  and 
technical  advances  of  the  school  must  rely  upon  the  support  of 
the  public,  which  the  educational  worker  must  carry  with  him. 
His  ability  to  "  keep  his  majorities  behind  him  "  depends  upon 
his  perception  of  education  through  the  eyes  of  one  who  is  at 
once  a  member  of  the  community  and  a  member  of  the  profession. 

(4)  Of  course  such  a  first  professional  treatment  does  not  meet 
our  full  necessities.  The  prospective  teacher,  unlike  the  student 
who  has  no  intention  of  teaching,  has  specialised  obligations  in 
terms  of  appreciation  and  action.  His  work  is  more  intensive 
and  more  technical.  He  needs  to  know  more,  to  be  sure,  and  to 
know  it  in  forms  of  varying  situation  and  versatility  of  skill.  But 
it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  prospective  teacher  can  take  on 
more  understanding  than  the  general  student  in  the  first  year's 
course  of  three  hours  per  week,  merely  because  he  has  profes- 
sional intentions. 

In  fact  a  single  course  in  the  history  of  education,  particularly 
if  it  come  at  the  beginning,  cannot  give  the  full  yield  of  profes- 
sional light  to  the  student  of  education.  Its  illumination  of  the 
more  subtle  and  technical  problems  which  are  his  special  demand 
above  that  of  the  student  of  general  culture  can  only  come  as 
his  mind  penetrates  the  educational  situation,  and  he  becomes 
conscious  of  the  various  phases  of  his  technical  needs.  The 
historic  treatment  of  education  is  not  merely  a  course,  it  is  a 
method.  It  may  be  applied  consecutively  throughout  certain 
courses,  but  it  ought  to  be  used  in  any  educational  treatment 
U'here  it  is  needed. 

In  view  of  all  of  the  above  considerations  it  seems  that  the  first 
professional  treatment  of  the  history  of  education  for  the  begin- 


48  The  History  of  Education. 

ning  student  of  education  and  the  cultural  treatment  for  the 
liberal  student  should  be  given  in  one  course  and  at  the  same  time, 
the  more  technical  treatment  required  by  the  educational  worker 
being  reserved  for  more  advanced  courses  or  for  courses  not 
primarily  historic  where  the  historic  method  is  however  used. 

The  time  allotment,  and  the  administrative  placing  of  the  above 
mentioned  introductory  professional  course  cannot  be  discussed 
to  any  advantage  in  theoretic  terms.  The  practical  conditions 
are  the  largest  determinants.  These  factors  are  so  complex 
and  lie  so  completely  beyond  the  control  of  the  instructor  of  the 
history  of  education,  and  of  the  department  of  education,  even, 
that  the  prevalent  tendency,  which  represents  a  kind  of  accom- 
plished adjudication  of  the  various  claims,  may  be  accepted.  It 
is  probable  that  a  statement  of  standard  which  would  in  the  long 
run  come  nearest  to  being  acceptable  is :  That  an  introductory 
professional  course  in  the  history  of  education  open  to  third  year 
students  should  occupy  three  periods  a  week  through  an  academic 
year  of  thirty  or  more  weeks. 

III.     THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  EDUCATION  FOR 
PROFESSIONAL  USE  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY 

On  the  basis  of  administrative  conditions  surrounding  the  use 
of  the  history  of  education  in  universities,  the  professional  presen- 
tation of  educational  history  occurs  in  three  distinctive  forms : 

1 i )  In  a  general  introductory  course  where  the  first  professional 
view,  required  in  common  by  future  kindergartner,  elementary 
teacher,  high  school  instructor,  principal,  superintendent  and  other 
professional  workers,  is  given  to  the  special  student  of  education 
along  with  that  cultural  view  required  by  the  liberal  arts  student. 

(2)  In  more  advanced  and  differentiated  courses  meeting  the 
more  specialized  professional  needs  of  differented  types  of  educa- 
tional workers  as  opposed  to  each  other  and  to  the  student  of 
liberal  arts.     (3)   In  the  use  of  historical  material  and  method 
as  one  incidental  means  of  presenting  the  theory  and  practice  of 
education  in  courses  not  specifically  and  dominantly  historical. 
The  problem  now  presents  itself  as  one  of  making  full  professional 
use  of  the  subject  in  each  of  the  three  opportunities  offered.    How 
then  shall  the  material  be  selected  and  organized  for  each  of 
these?     Let  us  consider  the  general  principles  which  seem  ap- 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  49 

plicable  to  the  professional  organization  of  the  history  of  educa- 
tion, so  as  to  be  concrete,  with  particular  reference  to  the  needs 
of  the  first  general  and  introductory  course  in  the  history  of 
education.  Any  modification  of  their  application  as  necessitated 
by  the  conditions  of  subsequent  treatments  may  be  considered 
later. 

If  one  is  to  judge  by  the  announcements  of  courses  in  the 
history  of  education,  and  by  the  discussions  of  the  worth  of  the 
history  of  education  in  the  magazines  and  text  book  prefaces,  the 
usual  college  course  in  that  subject  presents  a  situation  which  is 
determined  by  no  clearly  conscious  and  unifying  principles  of 
organization.  It  has  been  determined  by  a  mixture  of  influences. 
Not  that  this  mixture  of  moulding  forces  has  given  us  no  fixed 
tradition  in  the  matter.  On  the  contrary,  the  historical  study 
of  education  tends  very  strongly  toward  presenting  the  con- 
glomerate as  the  tradition. 

The  average  course  presents  a  kind  of  patchwork,  the  respec- 
tive patches  of  which  represent  the  influence  of  some  more  or 
less  isolated  and  special  attitudes  toward  the  subject.  Again 
there  is  a  feeling  that  the  organization  has  followed  lines 
of  least  resistance,  rather  than  lines  of  need.  Our  educational 
history  has  been  given  from  the  materials  nearest  at  hand,  without 
any  very  strenuous  effort  to  find  and  to  utilize  facts  not  within 
easy  reach.  There  are  doubtless  adequate  explanations  for  both 
of  these  conditions.  An  inadequate  consciousness  of  our  own 
problems  as  they  present  themselves  in  the  educational  situation 
of  to-day,  has  left  us  without  a  standard  for  the  selection  and 
interpretation  of  our  history.  We  have  not  known  in  a  definite 
and  orderly  fashion  the  series  of  present  day  problems  which  our 
educational  history  is  to  illuminate.  Again,  the  history  of  educa- 
tion has  been  given  by  men  whose  primary  interest  is  not  in  the 
field  itself,  but  in  some  other  aspect  of  educational  study.  The 
result  has  been  that  our  educational  history  has  been  given  with 
such  material  as  might  be  at  hand  without  any  considerable  use 
of  research  to  supply  our  pertinent  wants.  The  availability  of 
theoretic  writings  as  opposed  to  a  knowledge  of  educational 
practice  has  undoubtedly  been  a  factor  in  making  our  work  too 
largely  the  history  of  theory.  The  emphasis  upon  individual 
reformers  as  opposed  to  wide  social  movements  may  be  attributed 
in  part  at  least  to  the  same  condition.  Fortunately  there  have 


5O  The  History  of  Education. 

been  of  late  some  evidences  of  the  beginnings  of  a  reform  of 
these  prevalent  weaknesses.  Still,  the  courses  today  present, 
so  far  as  one  may  judge  from  appearances,  the  mixed  and  im- 
perfectly unified  organization  previously  suggested. 

When  one  considers  some  of  the  more  important  points  of 
view  which  have  been  factors  in  shaping  the  course,  it  would 
scarcely  seem  possible  for  the  condition  to  have  been  otherwise. 
A  few  typical  statements  regarding  the  use  and  the  worth  of  the 
subject  are  listed  so  as  to  suggest  the  mixture  and  even  oppo- 
sition of  various  opinions  as  to  the  organization  of  the  subject. 

ORGANIZING  POINT  OF  VIEW 

"  The  history  of  education  is  genuinely  and  primarily  history  " 

"  As  a  historical  subject,  moreover,  it  is  to  be  taught  in 

the  same  scholarly  way,  and  by  the  same  general  methods,  as  any 
other  college  course  in  history."  (Norton,  A.  O.  Scope  and 
Aims  of  the  History  of  Education,  Educ.  Rev.,  vol.  27,  p.  443.) 

(The  course  aims  to  give  such  a)  "  knowledge  of  the  relation 
of  institutional  education  to  the  development  of  civilization  and 
culture  as  is  indispensable  to  a  liberal  college  training."  (North- 
western University,  General  Catalogue,  1906-7,  p.  85.) 

"  Throughout  its  treatment)  the  history  of  education  is  re- 
garded from  the  point  of  view  of  its  place  in  the  professional 
education  of  teachers,  and  its  primary  purpose  of  affording  to 
prospective  teachers  a  basis  for  the  interpretation  and  apprecia- 
tion of  the  essential  features  of  particularly  modern  elementary 
and  secondary  education."  (University  of  Wisconsin,  cata- 
logue, 1906-7,  p.  105.) 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  SUBJECT 

"  It  gives  him  true  pedagogic  perspective  and  enables  him  to 
estimate  accurately  the  value  of  courses  of  study  and  methods 
of  teaching."  (Kemp,  History  of  Education,  p.  vii.) 

"  The  serious  problems  of  our  education  are  not  those  of  mere 
detail  and  temporary  device;  not  whether  this  should  be  taught, 
or  that  left  out;  but  those  which  indicate  the  trend  of  our  de- 
velopment." (Kiehle,  The  History  of  Education:  what  it  stands 
for.  School  Review,  vol.  IX,  p.  314.) 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  51 

(Its  value  is)  "  in  the  general  ways  of  looking  at  contemporary 
educational  matters  rather  than  in  pattern  solutions  of  the  small 
problems  of  teaching."  (Norton,  A.  O.  Scope  and  Aims  of  the 
History  of  Education,  Educational  Review,  vol.  XXVII,  p. 

455-) 

"  How  shall  the  subject  be  taught?  Not  certainly  by  picking 
out  those  parts  of  it  '  which  bear  directly  upon  present-day  prob- 
lems of  education,'  for  every  part  of  it  bears  directly  upon  pres- 
ent-day education."  (Moore,  E.  C.  The  History  of  Education. 
School  Review,  vol.  xi,  p.  356.) 

ASPECTS  AND  RELATIONS  TREATED 

"  We  read  about  the  great  teachers  instead  of  reading  what 
they  have  written."  (Maxwell,  The  Literature  of  Education, 
Educational  Review,  vol.  II,  p.  323.) 

"  The  great  educational  movements  are  racial  and  not  indivi- 
dual. Too  much  emphasis  has  been  placed  upon  the  work  of 
certain  heroic  teachers,  and  too  little  emphasis  upon  the  domi- 
nant educational  spirit  of  the  age."  (Brumbaugh,  M.  G.  in  edi- 
tor's preface,  Kemp's  History  of  Education,  p.  ix.) 

"The  history  of  the  education  of  a  people  is  not  the  history  of 
its  schools,  but  the  history  of  its  civilization."  (Laurie,  S.  S. 
Historical  Survey  of  Pre-Christian  Civilization,  pi.) 

"It  is  not  the  history  of  civilization,  it  is  the  history  of  man's 
efforts  to  perpetuate  and  extend  the  values  which  the  society  of 
his  time  has  acquired."  (Moore,  E.  C.  The  History  of  Educa- 
tion, School  Review,  vol.  xi,  p.  349.) 

"Vital  theory  must  grow  out  of  practice.  ..  .the  history  of 
educational  theories  must  not  be  cut  away  from  the  history  of 
educational  practice."  (Moore,  E.  C.  The  History  of  Educa- 
tion, School  Review,  vol.  xi,  p.  356.) 

NATIONS  AND  EPOCHS  INCLUDED 

"It  (the  course  in  educational  history)  ought  to  have  preg- 
nant, meaty  chapters  on  education  in  China  ....  in  India  .... 
and  I  would  have  a  careful  chapter  on  primitive  education  as 
illustrated  in  savage  races,  past  and  present,  a  theme  full  of  sug- 
gestiveness."  (Hall,  G.  S.  What  is  Pedagogy?  Pedagogical 
Seminary,  vol.  12,  p.  358.) 


52  The  History  of  Education. 

"Educational  development  among  primitive  people,  or  those 
who  have  contributed  little  to  the  stream  of  European  civiliza- 
tion, is  of  only  minor  value."  (Cubberley,  E.  P.  Syllabus  of 
lectures  on  the  history  of  Education,  2d.  ed.,  p.  8.) 

DETAILED   FACTS  AND  INTERPRETATIONS 

"We  see  what  a  history  of  education  would  be:  a  sort  of 
philosophy  of  history."  (Compayre,  G.  History  of  Pedagogy, 
p.  x.) 

"The  facts  must  be  stated  in  extenso;  else  the  interpretations 
which  are  offered  will  remain  in  air."  (Moore,  E.  C.  History 
of  Education,  School  Review,  vol.  XI,  p.  356.) 

"Some  of  my  generalizations  are,  I  know,  open  to  question. 
In  defense  I  have  only  to  say  that  in  all  cases  I  have  given  what 
seemed  to  me  best  calculated  to  impart  a  comprehensive  view 
of  the  entire  subject."  (Davidson,  T.  History  of  Education, 
pp.  v,  vi.) 

"The  work  I  have  in  mind  should  be  pretty  well  purged  of 
the  lumber  of  learning,  should  not  deal  much  with  critical  ques- 
tions, but  should  above  all,  be  edifying."  (Hall,  G.  S.  What  is 
Pedagogy?  Pedagogical  Seminary,  vol.  xii,  pp.  379,  380.) 

"The  history  of  education  is  a  vast  field,  and  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  demand  bulky  treaties  as  the  only  adequate  ones.  But 
the  obvious  disadvantage  of  such  works  has  led  to  the  clearly 
defined  ideal  of  a  book  like  Mr.  Quick's,  which  separates  the  gold 
from  the  dross,  and  offers  it  small  in  bulk  but  precious  in 
value."  (Harris,  W.  T.,  in  editor's  preface,  Quick's  Educa- 
tional Reformers,  ed.  of  1890,  p.  viii.) 


Such  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  the  controlling  factors  in  the 
selection  and  organization  of  the  materials  in  the  history  of 
education  makes  clear  the  need  of  a  unifying  and  adequate  point 
of  view,  from  which  may  be  judged  the  worth  of  various  treat- 
ments of  the  history  of  education. 

What  the  history  of  education  will  be  depends  upon  what 
education  is.  If  education  is  merely  instruction  in  certain  sub- 
jects, then  the  history  of  education  will  be  the  history  of  teach- 
ing methods.  If  it  is  held  to  be  a  vastly  wider  process  wherein 
the  school  and  other  institutions  are  bringing  about  a  conscious 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  53 

evolution  of  mankind  through  the  educative  process  toward 
spiritual  and  moral  ends,  then  the  history  of  education  will  in- 
clude much  more  than  the  history  of  teaching  device.  It  will  in- 
clude every  factor  in  school  life,  its  aims,  its  teaching  and  ad- 
ministrative methods,  its  subject  matter,  its  organization.  More, 
it  will  treat  of  other  educative  institutions  beside  the  school,  and 
these  with  the  school  will  be  related  to  each  other  and  the  larger 
civilization  of  which  they  are  all  a  part.  It  is  precisely  because 
we  have  no  clear  idea  of  what  the  educational  pr^^fO^TTin  its 
fullest  meaning  that  we  have  no  standard  for  dete¥Pninii«:  what 
is  a  proper  course  in  the  history  of  education.  It  will  pp». 
conception  of  the  nature  of  the  educational  process,  or 
cational  philosophy,  which  will  determine  \vhat  facts,  aspects,  re- 
lations and  sequences  need  to  be  trs^fyvflB^Brically.  ^ 

The  philosophy  of  education  whflM*  flnderliqj|i|taMtfopositions 
presented  in  this  paper  cannot  be  Stated  here,  y^dk  hardly  be 
suggested.  It  will  appear  to  even  the  superficuR^eader,  how- 
ever, that  education  is  not  the  mere  teaching  of  knowledge.  It 
is  infinitely  broader  in  its  function.  Society,  along  with  the  rest 
of  the  world,  is  in  progress  of  evolution.  With  humanity  this 
evolution  is  becoming  more  and  more  conscious.  Man's  struggles- 
with  the  universe  have  been  given  an  interpretation  through 
man's  idealistic  ethics.  The  ethical  ends  here  set  up,  in  so  far  as 
they  can  be  seen,  are  the  goals  toward  which  humanity  is  trying  to 
guide  humanity  in  its  spiritual  struggles.  In  so  far  as  these  are 
realized  through  the  development  of  personality  by  the  use  of 
educational  means,  education  is  a  process  of  conscious  evolution. 
which  finds  its  constant  product  in  the  realization  of  higher  and 
higher  adaptive  relationships  between  man  and  the  total  en- 
vironment through  which  he  achieves  himself. 

The  progress  of  any  professional  course  in  the  history  of 
education  will  be  determined  by  the  point  of  view  of  the  pro- 
fessional worker  to  be  trained,  and  that  point  of  view  will  be 
established  by  his  future  functions.  A  professional  course  for 
those  who  are  to  render  service  in  the  school  involves  at  least 
three  special  limitations :  ( i )  Such  a  course  will  deal  more  par- 
ticularly with  the  history  of  schools  than  with  other  institutions 
which  have  been  educational,  though  inter-institutional  relations 
must  be  constantly  treated.  (2)  The  functions  of  such  a  worker 
are  practical.  They  frame  themselves  in  terms  of  obligations 


54  The  History  of  Education. 

that  are  to  be  discharged  through  action.  In  so  far  as  the  history 
of  education  has  any  professional  worth  for  the  school-worker, 
it  will  be  a  body  of  professional  experience  instrumental  in 
offering  guidance  in  his  professional  activities.  (3)  This  practi- 
cal school  function  has  particular  reference  to  the  present  and 
the  future.  As  a  vocational  subject  it  will  be  no  mere  accumu- 
lation of  knowledge  bearing  upon  some  remote  period  however 
interesting;  no  stock  of  information  satisfying  certain  intellectual 
curiosities  which  the  individual  may  happen  to  have.  It  will  be  a 
selective  treatment  of  the  past  with  regard  to  its  ability  to  shed 
light  upon  present  problems^  and  needs.  It  will  be  a  selective, 
interpretative,  and  fully  unified  treatment  of  educational  experi- 
ence in  its  various  aspects  and  relations,  used  as  an  aid  in  the 
formulation  of  a  theory  for  the  control  of  the  present  educational 
practice  which  is  to  be  viewed  as  the  latest  stage  in  our  educational 
evolution. 

Under  such  an  understanding  of  a  professional  course  in  the 
history  of  education,  what  aspects  and  relationships  should  be 
.treated  in  any  given  epoch  of  any  given  society? 

It  may  be  said  of  the  school  that  the  adjustments  it  makes 
"may  be  classified  into  two  large  groups.  In  the  first  place  it 
makes  certain  modifications  of  itself  to  suit  the  conditions  and 
needs  of  the  larger  society  of  which  it  is  a  part.  The  state  of 
society  and  the  hope  of  society  give  it  its  aims  and  functions. 
The  school  builds  the  kind  of  man  that  the  community  prizes. 
Whether  a  school  shall  have  thirty  or  forty  or  fifty  children  per 
teacher,  depends  upon  how  well  educated  the  community  wants 
its  children  to  be,  measured  not  in  terms  of  their  "  say-^o  "  but 
in  terms  of  the  sacrifices  they  are  ready  to  make  measured  by 
the  school  tax  they  are  willing  to  endure.  In  a  thousand  similar 
detailed  ways,  the  school  is  influenced.  These  reflections  of  social 
forces  may  be  called  the  school's  external  adjustments. 

In  the  second  place,  the  school  modifies  itself  to  suit  the  pecu- 
liarities of  its  own  social  life.  Because  it  is  made  up  of  many  im- 
mature little  people,  it  must  have  special  ways  of  making  the 
adult  culture  of  civilization  take  on  meaning  for  the  child.  Its 
control  over  the  child  will  be  limited  to  such  activities  as  will 
be  permitted  by  the  power  and  intimacy  which  teacher  and  child 
have  with  each  other  under  the  limited  time  of  acquaintance  in  a 
common  life.  We  know  the  school  cannot  do  anything  or  every 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  55 

thing.  Its  own  strength  and  limitations  dictate  what  it  can  and 
cannot  do.  Such  arrangements  of  its  own  work  which  are  made 
to  foster  its  own  strengths  and  protect  its  own  weaknesses,  may 
be  called  the  school's  internal  adjustments. 

These  external  and  internal  adjustments  of  the  school  are  end- 
less, and  they  combine  in  an  infinite  number  of  ways  affecting 
each  other.  Only  the  more  important  ones  can  be  studied. 
These  external  adjustments  between  the  school  and  society  pre- 
sent a  series  which  is  most  fundamental  to  the  professional 
worker.  The  school  cannot  be  understood  in  isolation.  It  has 
no  meaning  outside  of  its  social  setting.  It  is  social  life  which 
has  created  the  school;  it  is  for  social  control  in  some  form  or 
other  that  the  schools  exist  at  all.  The  aims  and  purposes  which 
determine  what  the  school  shall  strive  to  do  are  not  gotten  from 
itself  but  from  the  civilization  which  has  brought  it  into  its  pre- 
sent existence.  The  efficiency  of  the  school's  work  is  only 
known  as  its  men  and  women  sustain  their  obligations  when  re- 
turned to  the  fuller  life  of  the  larger  social  grouping.  A 
knowledge  of  social  forces  in  their  relation  to  the  school  is  the 
beginning  and  the  ending  of  any  understanding  of  what  the 
school  is.  Other  facts  regarding  the  school  are  necessary,  but 
they  are  intermediary  and  get  their  meaning  from  the  wider  so- 
cial relationships.  It  will  be  a  fundamental  function  of  any  good 
professional  course  in  the  history  of  education  to  present  as1  a 
constant  factor  the  relation  of  the  school  to  society  rc-iV/r  its  con- 
ditions and  aspirations. 

Such  a  social  study  of  education  will  also  relate  the  function  of 
the  school  to  other  institutions.  The  school  does  not  meet  all 
the  educational  demands  of  the  whole  of  society.  It  carries  those 
that  it  is,  relatively  speaking,  better  fitted  to  carry  than  are  other 
institutions.  The  school  should  not  waste  its  time  trying  to 
perform  tasks  it  cannot  do.  Some  of  the  deeper  and  more  inti- 
mate virtues  which  the  home  can  foster  so  well,  the  school  ut- 
terly fails  to  engender.  The  school  should  not  expend  its  ener- 
gies trying  to  perform  tasks  which  other  institutions  can  do 
better.  Our  existing  practical  arrangements  in  the  school  and 
other  institutions  are  vital  examples  of  the  recognition  of  this 
principle. 

Institutions  will  not  alone  limit  and  supplement  each  other. 
They  will  influence  and  modify  each  other.  The  various  insti- 


56  v  The  History  of  Education. 

tutional  aspects  of  social  life  are  constantly  affecting  the  school. 
It  is  trite  to  say  that  religious,  political,  economic,  cultural  and 
other  social  conditions  influence  the  school.  What  the  school 
happens  to  be  is  determined  not  only  by  the  general  conditions 
and  ideals  of  society  in  the  large,  but  also  by  the  specific  organi- 
zation and  function  of  other  specific  social  institutions.  Econo- 
mic, religious,  political,  and  other  institutional  forces  must  be 
reckoned  with.  So  must  the  state  of  knowledge  and  culture  be 
known,  not  only  because  they  influence  social  values  and  forces 
but  because  they  largely  determine  the  school's  materials  and 
procedures.  The  course  of  study  cannot  transcend  the  state 
of  knowledge.  The  methods  of  instruction  will  depend  upon 
the  prevailing  notions  of  psychology,  biology,  sociology  and 
ethics.  A  good  professional  course  in  the  history  of  education 
unll  indicate  the  inter-relations  of  the  school  and  other  particular 
social  institutions. 

Upon  the  side  of  the  school's  internal  adjustments  stand  all 
its  condescensions  to  child  nature.  Everywhere  and  at  every  in- 
stant the  school  bends  to  the  nature  of  its  own  social  grouping. 
All  it  does  cannot  have  a  sanction  from  some  social  practice  or 
theory  of  the  society  of  mature  men  and  women;  much  that  the 
school  does  has  only  the  sanction  of  childhood.  Special  methods 
of  teaching,  special  ways  of  disciplining,  special  ways  of  living 
in  school  are  marks,  in  many  cases,  of  the  school's  adjustment 
to  its  own  "strength  of  materials."  What  the  school  thinks  its 
own  situation  is,  has  had  a  history  just  like  any  other  aspect  of 
school  life. 

The  school  of  to-day  is  full  of  stock  notions  of  teaching 
methods.  They  are  the  product  of  the  past  carried  into  the  pre- 
sent, frequently  without  any  sanction  save  that  of  mere  momen- 
tum. Traditional  curricula  come  down  bodily  from  one  decade 
to  another,  without  much  regard  for  changed  conditions.  Our 
discipline,  also,  shows  the  mile-mark  of  tradition.  These  are  to 
be  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  accepted  beliefs  regarding  child 
nature  which  were  current  at  their  rise.  In  so  far  as  these  psy- 
chological beliefs  upon  which  they  were  based  have  subse- 
quently been  proven  false,  and  the  methods  left  without  adequate 
logical  and  scientific  setting,  and  sanction,  the  historic  tracing 
has  its  lesson  for  the  teacher. 

The  child  as  a  factor  to  which  the  school  is  to  adjust  itself  is 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  57 

to  a  far  greater  degree  a  stable  element  than  the  society  to  which 
it  also  conforms.  The  child  as  he  is  given  to  us  by  nature  is  not 
considerably  different  from  one  period  to  another,  at  least  within 
the  historic  period;  but  society  to  which  the  school  also  con- 
forms has  had  a  rapid  evolution  within  the  same  time.  But  the 
opinion  of  people  as  to  what  the  child  may  be  psychologically  has 
varied  enormously.  Under  a  theory  of  "faculty  psychology,"  the 
teaching  theory  of  "formal  discipline"  comes  into  being,  and  per- 
sists in  the  control  of  educational  practices  long  after  psycholo- 
gists have  abandoned  their  conception  of  a  "faculty  psychology." 
Other  "level  theories,"  or  "epoch"  theories  of  a  child's  develop- 
ment have  also  played  a  part  in  systematic  schemes  of  educa- 
tion. They  continue  to  operate  as  educational  theories  after  the 
psychology  they  have  implied  has  been  proven  false. 

The  history  of  psychological  opinion  in  its  relation  to  teaching 
method  has  been  neglected  even  more  than  the  record  of  the 
school's  social  relations.  Our  history  of  education  has  given 
us  a  series  of  devices  that  have  had  a  historic  usage  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  evolution  of  the  psychological  opinion  which 
called  them  into  being  and  gave  them  an  understandable  sanc- 
tion. It  will  be  the  function  of  any  good  professional  course  in 
the  history  of  education  to  trace  the  relationship  between  the 
special  modes  of  its  own  internal  life  and  the  prevalent  psycho- 
logical opinions  which  have  determined  them. 

In  all  these  adjustments,  external  and  internal,  sociological 
and  psychological,  there  have  been  two  aspects  that  require  trac- 
ing and  interrelating.  There  has  been  always  the  actual  p~rac- 
tice  expressing  these  adjustments  and  again  there  has  been  a 
body  of  theory  suggesting  what  these  adjustments  ought  to  be 
and  how  they  ought  to  be  made.  These  two  aspects  have  been 
intimately  connected  all  through  the  history  of  education.  The 
history  of  education  must  present  both  theory  and  practice,  and 
show  them  in  their  true  relationship  to  each  other.  Neither  can 
be  treated  in  isolation.  Neither  is  fully  intelligible  without  the 
other.  Educational  theory  has  been  determined  largely  by  jrt- 
terpretations  of  educational  experience ;  in  turn  educational  prac- 
tice has  been  determined  by  controlling  ideas  constituting  a 
theory  either  implied  or  expressed.  A  single  illustration  from 
kindergarten  history  will  suffice.  Froebel's  experiences  as  a  tutor 


58  The  History  of  Education. 

and  as  master  of  the  Institute  at  Keilhau,  were  certainly  the  bases 
for  much  of  his  theory.  In  turn  his  theory  has  determined  the  prac- 
tice of  the  kindergarten  ever  since.  A  similar  relationship  holds 
of  the  secondary  school  which  has  been  more  largely  the  product 
of  professional  or  group  experience  and  theory,  as  opposed  to 
the  dominant  work  of  any  one  individual. 

Many  of  our  courses  have  had  a  tendency  to  over-emphasize 
the  history  of  theory,  to  the  almost  complete  omission  of  the 
actual  evolution  of  practice.  Even  the  theory  has  not  been  com- 
plete. It  has  dealt  with  systematic  theories  expressed  mainly  in 
the  writings  of  great  reformers,  and  only  to  a  restricted  degree 
with  that  implied  theory  which  is  the  corporate  possession  of 
wide  groups  of  teachers  holding  common  ideals,  and  teaching  by 
means  of  methods  more  or  less  similar.  The  Middle  Ages  had 
few  theorists  who  wrote  radical  theories  of  reform,  but  the 
teaching  body  had  an  implied  theory,  a  set  of  controlling  ideas. 

Some  have  believed  that  the  prevalent  emphasis  upon  theory 
was  to  be  corrected  by  being  "more  practical"  and  making  the 
course  a  history  of,  "actual  conditions."  This  in  turn  would  be 
going  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  isolated  treatment.  In  its  turn 
it  would  probably  be  a  narrow  interpretation  of  what  school 
practice  is,  laying  the  emphasis  upon  the  materials  of  the  course 
of  study  and  the  methods  of  instruction  and  neglecting  condi- 
tions of  organization  and  administration  which  are  of  equal  im- 
portance. 

The  professional  course  should  present  an  adequate  history 
of  theory  both  expressed  and  implied,  and  of  actual  practice,  both 
administrative  and  instructional;  and  indicate  their  bearing  upon 
each  other,  it  is  not  so  much  in  fitting  actual  devices  to  the 
practice  of  to-day,  or  in  borrowing  the  theoretic  idea  of  yester- 
day that  history  is  of  worth.  It  lies  rather  in  its  clear  presen- 
tation of  relations  and  their  sequences,  that  the  subject  is  valu- 
able. Social  history  repeats  itself  not  so  much  in  concrete  sit- 
uations as  in  the  varied  applications  of  the  same  relationships. 

The  study  of  the  educational  situation  of  a  given  group  of 
people  in  any  given  period  would  involve  the  study  of  many  fac- 
tors in  variable  relation  to  each  other.  The  following  partial  list 
of  topics  is  given  as  suggestive: 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  59 

I.  The  sociological  aspect. 

i.  Prevalent   conditions    and    ideals  of    the    period 
among  various  classes. 

a.  Manifest  in  various  institutions. 

(i)  Family,   vocational,   military,   religious, 
political  and  cultural  life. 

b.  How  far  realized  through  educational,  or  non- 

coercive  means, 
(i)  Particular  institutions  utilized. 

(a)  Their  limiting,  supplementing  and 

re-enforcing  influence  on  each  other. 

(2)The  special  functions  of  the  schools  in 

particular. 

c.  Social  influences  on  school  method. 

1 I )  On  nature  and  extent  of  school  organi- 
zation. 

(2)  On  the  course  of  study. 

(3)  On       attitude       toward       individuality 

of  children. 
II.  The  personal  aspect. 

1.  Prevalent  theories  as  to  psychology  and  physio- 

logy of  child. 

a.  Popular  attitude  toward  the  individual. 

b.  Scientific  or  quasi-scientific  belief    with    re- 

gard to  the  child. 

c.  Facts  of  individual  psychology  and  biology 

assumed  in  theory  of  discipline,  instruction, 
and  school  life  among  teachers. 

2.  The  organization  of  school  spirit  and  method. 

a.  Activities  utilized. 

(1)  Physical. 

(2)  Psychological. 

(a)  Sensory,  rational,  emotional,  ex- 
pressive, etc. 

(3)  Social. 

b.  The  materials  of  school  life. 

(1)  Formal  intellectual  material  of  curricu- 

lum. 

(2)  Play,  social  life,  etc. 

c.  Special  methods  of  instruction. 

d.  Special  methods  of  discipline. 


6o  The  History  of  Education. 

III.  The  school  as  an  active  adjustment  of  the  social  and  per- 
sonal aspects. 

1.  Types  of  schools. 

a.  Elementary,  secondary,  higher  schools. 

b.  Liberal  schools  and  technical  schools. 

c.  Supplementary     schools  —  evening,     Sunday 

schools,  etc. 

d.  Schools  for  tin-normal  people. 

2.  Distribution  of  population. 

a.  In  and  out  of  school. 

b.  In  different  types  of  schools. 

c.  Within  individual  schools. 

d.  Determining  factors  in  distribution. 

3.  The  organization  of  the  teaching  profession. 

a.  How  drafted. 

b.  How  educated. 

c.  Conditions  determining  their  life. 

4.  The  course  of  study. 

a.  What  studies. 

b.  Factors  determining  presence  of  each  study. 

c.  Relative  importance  of  each. 

5.  School  method. 

a.  Intellectual  activities. 

(i)  General  and  special  methods. 

b.  Extra-intellectual  activities. 

(1)  School  spirit  and  discipline. 

(2)  Play  and  social  organization. 

Thus  far  we  have  taken  note  of  the  elements  to  be  studied  in 
any  given  period.  The  view  is  one  of  co-existent  aspects  in  their 
relation  to  each  other.  But  there  are  historic  sequences  as  well 
as  contemporary  relationships.  In  our  professional  course  for 
the  training  of  school  workers,  which  of  these  are  to  be  omitted? 
Which  included?  How  related  in  treatment? 

In  as  much  as  the  use  of  the  course  is  for  a  particular  profes- 
sional training,  the  point  of  view  of  the  student  affords  a  stand- 
ard. The  teacher  or  the  prospective  one  is  in  the  position  of  a 
person  who  has  to  deal  with  a  present  situation.  It  is  a  situation 
reflecting  social  conditions  and  needs.  In  so  far  as  it  represents 
conditions,  it  has  a  traditional  aspect.  In  so  far  as  it  attempts 
to  supply  certain  needs,  it  is  interested  in  change,  in  a  modifica- 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  61 

tion  of  existing  educational  traditions.  It  is  in  the  understanding 
of  these  historic  forces  as  now  operative  that  the  teacher  has 
need  for  a  historic  interpretation.  The  materials  of  the  history 
of  education  should  be  selected  upon  the  basis  that  they  are  re- 
latively the  most  pertinent  to  an  understanding  of  the  present*- 
educational  situation.  They  represent  the  historical  knowledge 
which  is  most  vital  to  an  understanding  of  present  day  education 
in  terms  of  the  tasks  to  be  done.  They  are  the  larger  sources  of 
historic  influence  that  persist.  The  caste  system  of  education  in 
Ancient  India  has  left,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no  forces  influencing 
American  education  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  industrial 
revolution  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  England  has.  The  edu- 
cational theory  of  Jean  Gerson  is  not  as  important  in  understand- 
ing the  theory  of  to-day  as  the  views  of  Martin  Luther. 

The  principle  of  pertinency  to  the  present  must  not  be  under- 
stood to  be  the  equivalent  of  recency  as  a  basis  for  choice  of  ma- 
terials. Mere  nearness  in  point  of  time  is  no  necessary  indication 
of  the  degree  of  influence  which  a  historic  condition  or  theory 
may  exert  upon  our  present  life.  Out  of  the  desire  to  be  practi- 
cal, it  has  been  urged  that  a  course  in  the  more  recent  reaches 
of  the  history  of  education  in  the  United  States  would  be  more 
useful  than  one  covering  the  many  centuries  that  make  up  the 
history  of  education  in  Europe.  The  same  impulse  has  led  to  an 
emphasis  upon  courses  from  the  Renaissance  down.  A  contin- 
uous tradition  establishing  itself  during  the  Italian  Renaissance 
may  be  far  more  vital  to-day  than  some  evanescent  practice 
starting  in  colonial  America.  The  religious  instruction  of  the  old 
Latin  Schools  has  not  persisted,  but  the  humanities  of  the 
school  of  Yittorino  da  Felta  have.  The  influence  of  the  philoso- 
phy of  Plato  may  be  greater  than  the  educational  theories  of  Mil- 
ton. Some  forces  are  revolutionary  in  their  immediate  effects 
and  continuous  in  their  force  over  long  periods  of  time;  others 
are  less  effective  and  short  lived.  To  restrict  the  history  of  edu- 
cation to  a  period  of  the  recent  past  may  mean  that  the  allotted 
time  may  be  given  over  to  crowding  the  course  with  compara- 
tively insignificant  details,  and  may  mean  the  omission  of  some 
of  the  important  moulding  forces.  Other  factors  being  equal, 
the  more  recent  is  likely  to  be  the  most  important  fact;  but  the 
other  factors  are  practically  never  equal.  The  mere  recency  of 


62  The  History  of  Education. 

an  historic  influence  is  by  no  means  a  guarantee  of  its  worth  in 
explaining  the  educational  problems  of  to-day. 

If  preference  is  given  to  those  historic  movements  which  are 
especially  valuable  in  appreciating  the  traditional  elements  in  our 
educational  scheme,  the  facts  are  therefore  not  to  be  presented  in 
an  order  dictated  mainly  by  the  present-  situation,  with  only 
"more  or  less"  of  historic  sequence.  Such  a  disposition  of  the 
subject  might  make  up  a  good  course  in  ''comparative  educa- 
tion" but  it  would  not  be  history.  The  continuity  of  history  is  a 
necessity  in  any  appropriate  exposition.  The  selected  facts  need 
to  be  ordered  and  related  to  each  other  so  as  to  present  a  con- 
tinuous movement  of  forces,  the  temporary  terminal  point  of 
which  is  in  the  present  educational  situation.  To  jump  suddenly 
from  Greek  education  to  the  Middle  Ages,  without  careful  transi- 
tion, or  to  leave  the  thread  of  educational  development  hanging 
in  air  above  European  soil  at  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, may  be  to  know  our  traditional  antecedents,  but  not  to 
know  them  in  connection  with  each  other  and  with  education 
in  America  to-day.  Sometimes  the  connection  is  made,  but  made 
meagerly,  with  an  influence  traced  out  here  and  there.  What  is 
required  is  an  adequate  and  continuous  tracing  of  the  influences 
theoretical  and  practical  zvhich  are  related  to  the  educational  con- 
ditions and  aspirations  of  American  democracy  in  the  twentieth 
century. 

The  historic  elements  which  have  made  up  the  traditional  as- 
pects of  our  recent  past,  are  the  product  of  deep  rootings  in  the 
centuries.  There  have  been  many  contributing  soils.  The  ma- 
jor civilizations  and  the  minor  ones  have  been  drawn  upon, 
sometimes  directly,  sometimes  indirectly.  It  is  not  always  pos- 
sible to  trace  the  original  sources  of  ideas  and  practices,  nor  is  it 
always  feasible.  It  would  seem  best  to  limit  the  history  of  edu- 
cation to  the  main  lines  of  institutional  and  cultural  descent.  The 
civilizations  of  the  Mesopotamian  and  Nile  valleys  were  unques- 
tionably an  influence  upon  the  Greek  culture  and  life  which  have 
descended  to  us.  But  as  types  of  education  they  are  only  in- 
directly connected  with  our  inheritance.  It  seems  a  lack  of 
economy  to  treat  them  as  special  topics  for  study.  To  the  ex- 
tent that  they  offer  important  elements  they  can  be  treated  in- 
cidentally in  the  presentation  of  the  larger  Greek  civilizations, 
into  which  the  elements  of  concern  to  us  were  merged. 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  63 

If  Babylon,  Egypt,  Persia  and  other  nations  of  equal  remote- 
ness of  relation  are  to  be  subordinated  to  an  incidental  treatment 
in  the  presentation  of  more  important  civilizations  through  which 
their  influence  was  felt,  we  might  go  further  in  the  case  of  nations 
that  have  not  touched  our  educational  traditions.  The  educational 
agencies  of  primitive  peoples  in  Africa,  Australia  or  America 
may  be  interesting  from  a  comparative  point  of  view,  and  in- 
deed valuable,  But  they  constitute  no  part  of  our  educational 
history.  They  should  be  left  out.  The  same  may  be  said  of  such 
other  peoples  who  have  barely  touched  our  civilization.  China 
and  India  are  practically  no  part  of  our  educational  history.  All 
these,  by  virtue  of  their  contrasts  may  be  useful  in  educational 
study,  but  they  belong  primarily  to  a  comparative  study  of  edu- 
cation rather  than  to  a  study  of  our  educational  evolution. 

The  main  line  of  our  cultural  descent  may  well  begin  with  the 
primitive  Greeks  and  continue  through  each  stage  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  Greek  life.  The  contribution  of  Roman,  the  heritage  of 
Hebrew  and  Early  Christian,  as  well  as  the  influence  of  a  world- 
spread  Greek  culture  may  be  noted  at  the  elimination 
and  fusion  of  forces  during  the  transition  from  ancient  civ- 
ilization to  the  Middle  Ages.  The  evolution  of  European  edu- 
cation as  a  whole  should  be  traced  through  the  mediaeval  cen- 
turies until  the  seventeenth  is  reached.  After  the  Protestant  Re- 
formation it  is  Protestant  North  Europe  that  should  be  empha- 
sized. In  the  seventeenth  century,  England  needs  particular  at- 
tention as  the  mother  of  the  American  colonies.  In  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  "transit  of  education"  from  Europe  to  Amer- 
ica should  be  carefully  followed.  After  this  "  transit/'  American 
evolution  should  form  the  main  study. 

All  the  important  movements  within  this  main  line  of  cultural 
descent  should  be  followed  with  care,  and  their  origins,  relations 
to  each  other,  and  consequences  noted.  The  coming  of  the  "  new 
education"  in  Greece,  the  economic  and  political  changes  in 
Rome,  the  Christian  revolt  from  Judaism,  the  coming  of  the  Bar- 
barians, the  rise  of  monasticism,  the  revival  of  Alcuin,  the  found- 
ing of  the  universities,  the  Renaissance,  the  Reformation,  the 
Puritan  Revolution,  the  American  Revolution : —  all  these  present 
types  of  movements  within  the  main  current  of  development. 

Where  side  currents  of  large  influence  have  entered  and  fused, 
their  contributions  must  also  be  studied  with  great  care.  The 


64  The  History  of  Education. 

influence  of  the  Barbarian  invasions,  the  addition  of  Muslim  cul- 
ture, the  French  Revolution,  in  fact  the  whole  European  in- 
fluence upon  American  education  since  the  seventeenth  century 
represent  typical  secondary  influences  upon  the  main  educational 
traditions  in  American  life  that  must  be  given  detailed  treat- 
ment. 

On  the  whole,  the  materials  selected  for  a  professional  course 
in  the  history  of  education  should  be  limited  to. the  important 
lines  of  our  cultural  and  institutional  descent.  This  would  (i) 
completely  eliminate  certain  matter  now  taught;  (2)  subordi- 
nate certain  other  materials  to  an  incidental  treatment;  (3)  make 
"secondary"  such  important  movements  and  influences  as  have 
been  more  or  less  external  and  foreign  to  the  main  line  of  de- 
velopment, and  (4)  regard  as  "primary"  those  historic  changes 
which  have  marked  the  evolution  of  our  direct  line  of  social  and 
educational  inheritances. 

Any  ordinary  course  in  history  which  covers  a  wide  reach  of 
facts  will  cover  many  periods.  The  treatment  of  one  epoch,  with 
due  regard  for  transitions,  will  be  followed  by  another.  The  pre- 
sentation of  a  given  epoch  will  indicate  and  relate  the  different 
dominant  aspects  of  a  period.  For  clearness  of  perception  and 
for  their  comparative  worth,  each  period  may  be  contrasted  or 
likened  to  the  organization  of  the  forces  operating  in  our  own 
time.  This  will  give  a  constant  present  value  to  the  study  of  any 
period.  But  on  the  whole,  the  treatment  will  necessarily  be 
epochal,  with  the  final  significance  of  each  set  of  facts  realizing 
itself  fully  only  as  they  find  their  final  place  in  the  situation  of 
to-day.  This  dominant  epochal  treatment  needs  to  be  summar- 
ized, and  such  a  summary  can  be  well  made  in  a  rapid  historic 
review  of  the  many  historic  phases,  which  are  still  of  vital  con- 
cern. It  will  insure  a  vitality  to  the  historic  treatment  that  might 
otherwise  be  missed.  Furthermore,  it  makes  the  history  course 
a  truer  basis  for  the  theoretic  study  of  contemporaneous  educa- 
tion in  terms  of  controlling  conditions  and  principles.  It  is  the 
best  transition  from  a  historical  study  to  a  theoretic  treatment 
where  the  present  problems  are  viewed  in  aspects.  The  practice 
of  some  institutions  in  providing  for  the  study  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  education  as  the  last  third  or  fourth  of  the  introduc- 
tory course,  may  here  find  an  adequate  means  of  relating  the  his- 
tory and  principles  of  education. 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  65 

The  aspects  which  may  be  selected  may  be  determined  by 
many  fundamental  points  of  view.  The  discussion  may  be  from 
the  standpoint  (i)  of  the  large  institutional  forces  which  have 
influenced  the  school,  when  political,  economic,  religious  and 
other  institutional  aspects  may  be  reviewed  with  historic  con- 
tinuity. (2)  The  view  may  be  from  the  standpoint  of  the  large 
movements  within  the  school  which  have  successively  determined 
the  subject  matter  of  the  educational  institution,  when  the  schol- 
astic, the  humanistic,  the  disciplinary,  and  other  realistic  aspects 
may  be  treated.  (3)  The  factors  which  have  largely  operated 
from  within  and  determined  the  method  and  spirit  of  instruction 
and  school  life,  such  as  the  psychological,  sociological  and  scien- 
tific points  of  view  may  have  their  influence  traced.  (4)  The  sum- 
mary may  be  in  terms  of  administrative  aspects,  the  history  of 
specific  institutions,  like  the  kindergarten,  the  elementary  school, 
the  secondary  school  and  the  higher  institutions  of  learning,  be- 
ing traced.  A  supplementing  of  the  epochal  treatment  by  an  his- 
toric summary  of  the  development  of  different  aspects  of  educa- 
tion will  help  to  unify  educational  history  with  the  present  situa- 
tion, and  make  a  good  transition  to  a  theoretic  discussion  of  the 
principles  of  educational  control. 

In  the  department  of  education  there  will  be  other  courses  be- 
side the  introductory  one.  There  will  be  need  for  a  more 
specialized  and  advanced  study  of  education  on  its  developmen- 
tal side.  But  the  general  professional  spirit  of  the  introductory 
course  should  hold  for  successive  courses.  The  general  principles 
laid  down  will  be  modified  only  in  that  they  are  restricted  to 
the  study  of  some  special  phase  or  period  of  educa- 
tional evolution,  as  "  the  history  of  the  theory  of  edu- 
cation," or  "  educational  development  since  the  Renaissance " 
In  the  case  of  a  research  course  making  a  study  primarily  from 
the  sources,  the  study  will  be  more  restricted  and  the  method 
more  intensive.  The  application  of  the  scientific  methods  of  his- 
toric investigation  will  in  no  way  come  in  conflict  with  the  se- 
lection of  problems  to  be  studied  so  that  such  study  will  be  at 
once  a  scientific  and  a  professional  contribution.  All  such 
courses,  whether  more  advanced  studies  from  wider  secondary 
materials  or  from  sources,  should  be  regarded  as  more  intensive 
treatments  of  the  special  aspects  which  have  already  been  related 
to  each  other  in  the  general  introductory  course.  As  part  of  the 


66  The  History  of  Education. 

work  of  a  vocational  school  they  ought  to  be  guided  more  or 
less  by  the  principles  already  suggested  for  that  particular  pro- 
fessional course.  The  specialised  zvork  of  advanced  courses 
should  be  kept  in  the  general  historic  setting.  Any  special 
methods  or  materials  zuhich  they  may  need  to  use,  will  supple- 
ment rather  than  annul  the  principles  already  lain  down. 

But  the  use  of  a  historic  treatment  of  education  is  not  only  a 
course,  it  is  a  method  to  be  applied  to  the  disentangling  of  the 
traditional  elements  in  our  present  problems.  As  the  student 
becomes  more  mature  he  will  see  detailed  phases  that  he  could 
not  understand  at  first  and  which  should  not  be  presented  in  any 
first  course.  As  these  more  restricted  aspects  come  to  con- 
sciousness in  the  theoretic  and  practical  courses  they  will  need  to 
be  studied,  and  here  the  historic  method  of  presentation  like  the 
comparative  may  be  brought  into  requisition.  The  historic 
treatment  of  the  method  of  teaching  spelling  in  the  three  hun- 
dred years  of  American  life  would  not  have  been  vital  to  the  stu- 
dent prior  to  his  need  to  understand  that  problem  as  brought 
to  his  mind  in  the  presentation  of  the  theoretic  course.  The 
special  problems  of  administrative  method  as  seen  in  schemes 
of  taxation,  grading  or  selection  of  teachers,  and  those  of  teach- 
ing method,  as  viewed  in  the  various  stock  ways  of  teaching 
reading,  or  geography,  would  only  be  a  dull  grind  on  details  if 
introduced  into  any  first  study.  But  later,  a  historic  treatment 
is  most  illuminating.  Nothing  so  clarifies  the  status  of  present 
methods  in  the  teaching  of  reading  to  beginners  as  a  clear  state- 
ment of  the  way  in  which  different  types  of  reading  method  have 
come  down  to  the  present  and  given  us  a  mixed  emphasis,  now 
upon  the  "phonetic  side"  and  now  upon  the  "thought  side."  The 
present  situation  with  regard  to  prevalent  reading  methods  can- 
not be  understood  without  it.  An  incidental  use  of  the  history 
method  may  properly  occur  in  almost  any  subsequent  study  of 
principles  and  methods,  rendering  large  service  in  the  clarifying 
of  particular  situations  which  need  to  be  understood  by  the  ma- 
ture and  specialised  student. 

Such  further  courses  in  particular  aspects  or  periods  of  his- 
tory and  seminars  in  historic  investigation,  along  with  the  inci- 
dental use  of  the  historic  method  wherever  needed  in  special 
courses  upon  theory  and  practice,  will  give  the  department  of 
education  an  opportunity  to  meet  the  specialized  needs  of  the 


Professional  Use  of  the  History  of  Education.  67 

students  who  come  within  the  care  of  the  department.  All  will 
need  the  general  introductory  professional  course;  no  one  will 
work  at  cross  purposes  with  his  fellow  in  dealing  with  the  larger 
educational  questions  which  concern  all  alike.  Whatever  spec- 
ialised needs  beyond  the  introductory  professional  course  are 
manifested  by  kinder gartner,  primary  teacher,  grammar  grade 
teacher,  high  school  instructor,  special  supervisor,  principal, 
superintendent,  or  educational  theorist  may  be  amply  met  by 
subsequent  courses  and  incidental  treatments.  As  each  pursues 
the  special  courses  of  his  own  field  the  historic  setting  may  be 
given.  Research  students  will  have  seminars ;  theorists,  the 
specialized  treatment  of  historic  theories ;  the  kindergartner, 
the  evolution  of  the  kindergarten;  the  primary  teacher,  the  his- 
tory of  the  elementary  school,  and  so  on.  The  only  limitation 
lies  in  the  size  of  the  department,  but  this  will  limit  the  possibility 
of  historic  treatment  no  more  than  comparative  and  other  treat- 
ments of  present  day  educational  problems. 


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